Vancouver Barracks and Officers Row

In 1846, the governments of Britain and the United States signed the Oregon Treaty, establishing the 49th parallel as the border between their territories. Three years later, the U.S Army established the Vancouver Barracks, the Pacific Northwest’s first American military post. The post was located just uphill from the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Vancouver, and when the HBC moved its headquarters to Victoria, British Columbia in 1860, the Army took over the Fort. The headquarters of the Department of Columbia was charged with keeping the peace in present-day Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Alaska, and helped to promote American expansion by protecting immigrants newly arrived over the Oregon Trail.

The barracks’ officers and high-level soldiers and their families lived along Evergreen Boulevard. The restored homes along Officers Row recall several prominent figures in American history who were stationed at Vancouver Barracks. The Marshall House, a Queen Anne Victorian built in 1886, was home to George C. Marshall, commander of the barracks from 1936-1938, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and author of the Marshall Plan, the roadmap for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II.

Ulysses S. Grant never lived in the house bearing his name, but he did visit it often as quartermaster of the barracks in the 1850s. This was the first house built on Officers Row and is the oldest remaining.

The Howard House was named for General Oliver Otis Howard, who went on to become the first head of the Freedman’s Bureau, an agency created to help freed slaves.

Vancouver Barracks was critical in the nation’s growth and development in a variety of ways well into the twentieth century. A spruce mill supplied airplane parts for the war effort in World War I. During the Depression the regional facility for the Civilian Conservation Corps trained thousands of unemployed Americans to work on New Deal projects. Today several Army Reserve and National Guard units are stationed at the barracks. Vancouver Barracks and Officers Row are now part of the Vancouver National Historic Reserve. The Howard House houses the reserve’s visitor center.