History of Bluebonnet Ordnance Plant: A Key WWII Manufacturing Site

In February 1942 the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps acquired 18,000 acres of land just southwest of McGregor, Texas, southwest of Waco and designated the tract as a site to manufacture munitions in support of the war effort. The National Gypsum Company was contracted to build, operate, and staff the plant. Officials broke ground for the facility, which was named after the Texas state flower, on April 18, 1942, and in October 1942 bombs began coming off the first production line. One of four ordnance facilities set up by the government, the Bluebonnet Ordnance Plant was the first to produce bombs used on the battlefield. Different production lines became active throughout 1942. Ultimately the facility produced three kinds of bombs—general purpose, semi-armor piercing, and fragmentation bombs—as well as other ordnance products and ammonium nitrate.  

Just as the United States ramped up production for World War II, the draft pulled millions of men into the armed forces and left a gap in the industrial workforce. Many women soon entered manufacturing jobs previously held almost exclusively by men. The Bluebonnet Ordnance Plant recruitment advertisements called for men and women of all races. However, African American men and women were compelled to use segregated facilities rather than working alongside White women or men. The result of such recruiting efforts was a workforce that reached a maximum size of approximately 5,000 at the height of the war. This influx of workers more than tripled the population of McGregor from 2,000 to 6,000 people and led to severe housing shortages in Waco and the surrounding area. The Bluebonnet plant had its own housing, hospital, newspaper, stores, and transit system as well as police and fire departments for its workers.

Women fulfilled a range of jobs throughout the plant, including operating forklifts and other heavy machinery to prepare the bombs for shipment. Though sometimes facing the challenges of harassment and stereotyping, women workers played an integral role in the production effort, and integrated work places such as Bluebonnet ultimately helped change social attitudes and led male managers and coworkers to appreciate women’s skills and capabilities. The women working at Bluebonnet and other industrial jobs proved themselves able to adapt to these physically demanding and dangerous jobs.

Bluebonnet Ordnance Plant was awarded the Army-Navy “E” Award for “outstanding performance in war production” on October 27, 1944. Near the end of the war much of the site was leased out for farming and ranching even as the ordnance plant itself remained a functional military installation. The surrender of Germany and Japan signaled the end of World War II and spurred rapid demobilization within the U.S. armed forces and wartime economy. When the plant ceased production on August 14, 1945, more than four million bombs had been produced along with almost nine million other ordnance items.

Soon after the war ended the ordnance plant was closed. In April 1946 the facility was transferred from the War Department to the War Assets Administration. A majority of the acreage went to the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University) for Bluebonnet Farm, an experimental agricultural research center. Some sections of the facility were converted to peacetime production of stoves and furniture. In 1952 the U.S. Air Force acquired more than 11,000 acres of the site and contracted with Phillips Petroleum Company for rocket fuel research and manufacturing. Aerospace research developed into a long-term use of the site, and various firms leased land on the site for rocketry testing and fuel production for decades after the ordnance assembly lines stopped rolling. The U.S. Air Force transferred ownership to the U.S. Navy in 1964. The site was designated the Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant in 1973, but operations were turned over to Hercules, Inc., in 1978, and production continued until the plant fully closed on July 31, 1996. The remaining property was transferred to the city of McGregor for an industrial park. A substantial portion of the site was leased by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) out of California for liquid engine testing in 2003.