Fort Douglas Camp Douglas was established in October 1862 as a small military garrison about three miles east of Salt Lake City , Utah , for the purpose of protecting the overland mail route and telegraph lines along the Central Overland Route . In 1878 , the post was renamed Fort Douglas . The fort was officially closed in 1991 , and most of the buildings were turned over to the University of Utah . A small section of the original fort is used by the Army Reserve and includes the Fort Douglas Military Museum . History . Establishment . The increasing threat of violence was caused by the withdrawal of federal troops from the West for action against the Confederacy in the Civil War . Col . Patrick Connor was selected to establish a military presence in the Utah Territory and selected a site east of Salt Lake City , where Camp Douglas ( named after Stephen A . Douglas by President Abraham Lincoln ) was officially established on Oct . 26 , 1862 . Connor had brought volunteer troops from California and Nevada to the camp . During the Civil War , the post served as the headquarters of the District of Utah in the Department of the Pacific . Regular Army arrives , 1866 – 1874 . Between 1866 and 1898 , the fort was part of the Department of the Platte . The fort ' s importance grew when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads joined rails at Promontory Summit , Utah , on May 10 , 1869 , completing the Transcontinental Railroad . 1878 – 1898 . Through the efforts of Utah ' s U . S . Sen . Thomas Kearns , the fort became a regimental post . World War I . During World War I , the fort was used as an internment camp for Germans living in the United States and also to house German naval prisoners of war . One of the crews was from the SMS " Cormoran " , which set sail from Tsingtao , China , and took refuge from the Japanese at Guam in December to refuel and take on provisions . Denied the fuel and provisions they requested , the Germans submitted to detention rather than return to sea . They became prisoners of war and were shipped to the fort when the United States declared war on Germany in 1917 . Interwar period . In 1922 , the fort became the home of the 38th Infantry . The 38th remained at Fort Douglas until August 1940 . World War II . The fort then became an Army Air Field and was home to the 7th Bombardment Group ( B - 17s ) . The fort reverted to an Army base after the attack on Pearl Harbor , when fears of a Japanese attack of the U . S . mainland caused the 9th Service Command Headquarters to be moved to the fort from the Presidio in San Francisco . The most famous person to be stationed there was probably Samuel Moore Walton , founder of Walmart , who served his military career there from 1943 to 1945 . Final years , 1945 – 1991 . After World War II , the Army began a slow divestiture of its lands at the fort to the University of Utah , which is located directly adjacent to it . However , it maintained busy Reserve functions for several more decades , notably with the 96th Army Reserve Command under the command of Maj . Gen . Michael B . Kauffman , who had spent much of his Army career at the fort and was instrumental in keeping it alive well past its announced closing in the 1970s . The Fort Douglas Military Museum is housed in a building named after Maj . Gen . Kauffman , who founded the museum and built it into one of the United States ' premier military museums featuring exhibits from all branches of the Armed Services . Between 1962 and 1973 , Fort Douglas was the site of the Deseret Test Center ( Buildings 103 and 105 ) with the responsibility of evaluating chemical and biological weapon s , although no tests were actually performed on the base . On Oct . 26 , 1991 , the fort closed officially , though the Utah National Guard maintained control of the museum , and the 96th ARCOM received the parts of the fort that were not deeded to the university . During the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City , much of the fort was used as part of the Olympic Village for the participating athletes . Cemetery . A cemetery was established in 1862 about a mile south of the original parade grounds . In 1864 , the soldiers at the post improved the cemetery significantly . They erected a monument in the center dedicated to the memory of the men killed at Bear River . They also constructed a red sandstone wall around the cemetery , with a steel gate located at the north end . The following year , a smaller monument was added for Utah Gov . James D . Doty following his death and burial in the cemetery . Later , the cemetery was expanded to accommodate a larger number of burials , not only from the fort , but also from Fort Cameron following its closure . A special section of the cemetery was also added for the German prisoners of war who died here during World War II . The Fort Douglas Cemetery continues to be an active federal military cemetery , actively maintained . A list of cemetery burials is available through the Utah History Research Center ' s cemetery database . < ref > / ref > = = Cemetery = =