TRANSITION: The First

The U.S. reached a milestone: last week workers began to tear down a newly built war plant.

In the spring of 1942, the War Department hurriedly bought 21,000 acres of rich farmland at Rosemount, Minn. Farmers were hustled off ("Don't you know there's a war on?") before they could harvest crops already planted. In came the Du Pont Co. with a big job: to build and operate the DPC's $69,000,000 Gopher Ordnance Works.

Some 20,000 workers moved in, swiftly put up 500 buildings and a central powerhouse with 15-story chimneys. They hauled in 85,000 tons of coal, even built a miniature city for key plant personnel, complete with a 20-bed hospital.

But long before the personnel could move in, U.S. powder requirements were drastically reduced. British and Russian powder plants were not bombed out, as the Army had feared. The cost of Gopher was cut almost in half, the six powder lines were cut to three. By the time these were finished last fall, powder plants were already being closed around the nation.

The Gopher plant never actually opened. A monument to something or other, it stood by, complete to the last broom, as insurance. Last week, the U.S. did not even need that insurance.

Wrecking crews moved into Gopher, began to crate the well-greased machinery, at a cost of $858,000, for shipment to other plants. Buildings will be left standing for a time. The farmers were moving back to the fertile land. Quipped one, sardonically twisting the boast of plant-sprouting 1942: "You wouldn't believe it, but this cornfield was once a war plant."