Main Street History: Rosemount's Ill-Fated WWII Munitions Plant

ROSEMOUNT, MN — If you live in Dakota County, you've likely driven past the massive site of a former World World II-era munitions plant without even realizing it.

The area is now known as UMore Park and is home to the University of Minnesota's massive wind turbine, which is easily seen from Highway 52. But for much of the 1940s, the land was the domain of the United States War Department.

In 1942, the federal government evicted 84 of farm families from nearly 12,000 acres of land to create Gopher Ordnance Works, according to historian John Lauber.

Homes and barns were bulldozed to make way for a smokeless gunpowder production plant.

The project, grand in scope, was ill-fated. Construction on the industrial plant was delayed due to weather, according to the Minnesota Historical Society. Minnesota saw a historically wet summer in 1942 that damaged roads, eroded land, and overwhelmed drainage systems.

Supply chain problems further delayed the opening. And in the spring of 1943, construction workers were laid off because production at the nation's existing gunpowder plants was already outpacing the war's demand.

The war department's vision to make Rosemount a war boom town was officially put on "standby status."

The plant likely would have remained vacant for the rest of the war if it wasn't for a sudden need for artillery that materialized on the Italian front. Construction on the plant was ordered to resume in the summer of 1944.

But it wasn't until early 1945 — when the end of the war was in sight — that the plant finally started making gunpowder. The plant ended production on Oct. 10, 1945.

While it ended up costing the federal government more than $150 million, it isn't clear if gunpowder produced at the Gopher Ordnance Works plant was ever used in the war.

The University of Minnesota bought the land in 1947 and has used it for various research projects ever since.

But the scars of the Gopher Ordnance Works project remain. View photos from the abandoned plant on Atlas Obscura.

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