Fort Leonard Wood
census-designated place in Pulaski County, Missouri, United States
Fort Leonard Wood is a U.S. Army training installation located in the Missouri Ozarks. The main gate is located on the southern boundary of the city of St. Robert. The post was created in December 1940 and named in honor of General Leonard Wood (former Chief of Staff) in January 1941. Originally intended to train infantry troops, in 1941 it became an engineer training post with the creation of the Engineer Replacement Training Center. During World War II Italian and German POWs were interned at the fort.
In 1984, as part of the Base Realignment and Closure process, most of the U.S. Army Engineer School's operations were consolidated at Fort Leonard Wood. Before that, officer training was conducted at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
In 1999, again as part of the Base Realignment and Closure process, Fort McClellan, Alabama, was closed, and the U.S. Army Chemical Corps and Military Police Corps schools were transferred to Fort Leonard Wood, which was concurrently redesignated the U.S. Army Maneuver Support Center.
In 2009, the U.S. Army Maneuver Support Center was redesignated the U.S. Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence (MSCoE); the "center of excellence" designation was placed on almost all U.S. Army training institutions.
“Fort Leonard Wood” enters the record as census-designated place in Pulaski County, Missouri, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Fort, Leonard and Wood can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Fort Leonard Wood” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Fort, Leonard and Wood provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q964399. VIAF identifies the subject as 147809366. The Library of Congress control number is n85084828. Authority coordinates are 37.773, -92.114. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940, 1941, 1984 and 1999.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Fort Leonard Wood” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.