Babbitt, Nevada

Babbitt was a government housing facility in Mineral County, Nevada, United States. It was established in 1941, expanded throughout World War II, had additional housing (Title III) added during the Korean War, and then gradually diminished and was dismantled over subsequent decades. The last residents left in 1987, and only a school and a bowling alley remained in operation for some years afterwards. The neighboring Hawthorne Naval Ammunition Dept (now the Hawthorne Army Depot) was the economic base.

Geography

Babbitt was located at 38°31′31″N 118°37′23″W (38.53816, -118.623053).

Name & Zip Code

Babbitt was named for Captain H. S. Babbitt, who, in 1935, was Inspector of Ordnance in Charge of the Naval Ammunition Depot at Hawthorne.

From 1961 until its abandonment in 1987, Babbitt was assigned the postal ZIP code of 89416.

History

The wartime expansion of the Naval Ammunition Depot at Hawthorne, Nevada required housing that the town could not provide. In response to this need, the Navy undertook a number of projects, including a Naval Battalion facility capable of housing 2000 sailors, conversion of an old CCC camp into a housing facility for single men called Camp Jumbo, adding a Construction Camp adjacent to Jumbo, in addition to a trailer park near Hawthorne. The biggest of these projects was the community of Babbitt, built to accommodate the civilian civil service workers.

The first phase of Babbitt consisted of 25 duplex units on a single block built in 1941. This quickly expanded, to 400 duplexes in 1942, and 487 by 1943. By the final stage of duplex construction Babbitt encompassed approximately 40 blocks and 584 duplexes by the end of World War II. All duplexes were on the same 10 room plan, with 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 kitchens, and two living rooms. Varying arrangements allowed for one, two, and three bedroom single units. A small number of duplexes were converted into four bedroom single units in postwar years.

West to East Avenues were named for aircraft carriers, including Essex, Lexington, Wasp, Ranger, Saratoga, Yorktown, Hornet, Enterprise, and Langley Avenues. North to South streets were numbered from 10th to 30th. The first street with housing on it was 11th. The numbering was probably started at 11 because nearby Hawthorne had 1st through 10th streets, thus avoiding confusion.

During the Korean War, additional housing—in the form of 65 two bedroom and 35 three bedroom single family units—were added to Babbitt's western corner. These 100 units were located along the Z shaped Dahlgren Drive, to which three other drives connected, Jones, Dewey, and Perry; all named for U.S. Navy figures.

At its peak, Babbitt contained approximately 2590 bedrooms, which indicates a minimum baseline population for that period of 2590 persons if each bedroom had only a single occupant.

The community was bisected by several contiguous blocks of public amenities known as "Babbitt Court", including Seabee Park, a shopping center, community activity buildings, a cafeteria, movie theater, library, and dispensary, amongst others. A school was added later.

Sometime between 1943 and 1954 three of the duplexes were removed and one moved to another location nearby to serve as a community center for the segregated African American part of the community. After the Korean War, the base's operations scaled back, and the number of workers diminished. Sections of Babbitt were closed off, and, eventually, the buildings were sold and moved to other locations and communities. By the early 1960s 171 duplexes and 51 single units were gone, and by 1970 an additional 114 duplexes had been moved out. In the 70s and 80s, additional sections were closed and dismantled. Residency of Babbitt ended entirely by June 1987.

At some point during the 60s a USAF radar tracking station (Detachment 12, ICEVG) was set up in Babbitt, on the large block bounded by Essex and Lexington Avenues and by 25th and 26 Streets. The radar site operated into the mid 1980s before being dismantled.

As of 2009, nothing remains of the Babbitt community except for a school building at the intersection of 21st Street and Yorktown Avenue, and numerous concrete building foundations. In 2004 the Whiskey Flats RV park was established roughly in the former location of the USAF station.

Discrimination

Babbitt was a segregated community for the first half of its history. Initially, a three block long gap of approximately 150 feet between 26th and 27th Streets separated one end from the rest of the community. This area housed African-American workers and their families, and was sometimes referred to by locals as "Colored Town".

The movie theater, the bowling alley, and the soda fountain at Johnson's Pharmacy were also segregated. African-Americans did not have the freedom to choose where they would sit to watch a movie, as the "colored" area of the Babbitt Theatre was sectioned off with a rope. Even the bowling alley had two separate wings. Due to those restrictions the Navy constructed a small building at one edge of the segregated section that was operated as a business called the "BBQ Pit", and one duplex was relocated to a spot adjacent to the BBQ and operated as a community center. Furthermore, many businesses in neighboring Hawthorne refused to serve African-American customers, including The El Capitan casino, the Three Rs restaurant and the Home Cafe. Only one bar, owned and operated by African Americans, served them during the 1950s. Despite strong and persistent local resistance, the Hawthorne branch of the NAACP worked to change discriminatory policies in the area, and organized sit-ins and demonstrations. Even intervention by Governor Grant Sawyer, failed to convince the El Capitan's owners to end their refusal to serve or even admit African-American customers. The public discrimination only came to an end with the passage of the federal Civil Rights Act in 1964..

Even as late as 1970 the majority of minorities in Babbitt lived at one end of the community, but this may not have been deliberate.