Qualla: From Ammunition Bunkers to Cattle Country

From Ammunition Bunkers to Cattle Country: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ellenm1, CC BY 2.0. On September 1, 1987, a Navy munitions train rolled toward the gates of Concord Naval Weapons Station and ran over a man sitting on the tracks. Brian Willson, a U.S. Air Force veteran turned peace activist, lost both legs below the knee, suffered a fractured skull, and became a symbol of the anti-war movement protesting American weapons shipments to Central America. In the days that followed, Jesse Jackson and Joan Baez joined thousands of demonstrators outside the base. Protesters tore up several hundred feet of Navy railroad track while police and Marines watched. It was one of the most dramatic moments in the station's history -- and the station had no shortage of dramatic moments across its six decades of operation, contamination, protest, and slow transformation into something no one who built it in 1942 could have imagined.

Image: ellenm1 | CC BY 2.0

From Ammunition Bunkers to Cattle Country: Arsenal on the Bay

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 2.5. The station opened in 1942 on the shore where the Sacramento River widens into Suisun Bay, north of the city of Concord. Its purpose was straightforward: store ammunition and supply the ships loading at nearby Port Chicago. During World War II, the base also operated a Naval Outl...

Image: Daniel Schwen | CC BY-SA 2.5

From Ammunition Bunkers to Cattle Country: Tracks of Dissent

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 2.5. The anti-war protests of the 1980s gave Concord NWS a place in the history of American civil disobedience. Beginning in 1982, during the peak of U.S. involvement in the Central American Crisis, demonstrators staged daily protests against weapons shipments to the region, including...

Image: Daniel Schwen | CC BY-SA 2.5

From Ammunition Bunkers to Cattle Country: Contaminated Ground

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 2.5. Decades of weapons storage left a chemical legacy. On December 16, 1994, the Environmental Protection Agency listed Concord NWS as a Superfund cleanup site. Investigators identified thirty-two contaminated areas across the facility, tainted with heavy metals -- zinc, copper, lead...

Image: Daniel Schwen | CC BY-SA 2.5

From Ammunition Bunkers to Cattle Country: Second Lives

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 2.5. The base's emptiness, paradoxically, made it valuable. In 2014, the Intelligent Transportation Society of America designated the station's GoMentum Station proving grounds as a test site for self-driving cars. With 2,100 acres and 19.6 miles of paved roadway, it became the larges...

Image: Daniel Schwen | CC BY-SA 2.5