Naval Station Great Lakes is in the news because the Pentagon approved using parts of the base to house Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement operations ordered by the Trump administration. The sprawling base in Lake County could also be used to house National Guard members or active-duty soldiers if Trump orders troops to Chicago.
Here's what to know about Naval Station Great Lakes.
Where is Naval Station Great Lakes?
Naval Station Great Lakes is just south of North Chicago and north of Lake Bluff. The base hugs the Lake Michigan shore and spreads west over 1,600 acres of land to near Route 41. The base has 1,153 buildings with 39 on the National Register of Historic Places, including Building One with its iconic clock tower. The Veterans Administration Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center is also at the Naval Station Great Lakes.
The base is about 40 miles north of Navy Pier in Chicago, where aircraft carriers used for training docked during World War II, giving the pier its current name.
What is the history of Naval Station Great Lakes?
Naval Station Great Lakes, the Navy’s only boot camp, was created to turn recruits into sailors.
President Theodore Roosevelt and Congress approved building the base and construction started in 1904. Though located far from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the Great Lakes base was built in the Midwest because the inland states generated a large number of recruits. The land was donated by the Merchants Club of Chicago. The base opened on July 1, 1911. On Oct. 28, 1911, President William Howard Taft was at the base to review the new sailors in the first graduation class.
At the time Great Lakes was being constructed, it was the second military base on the North Shore. The Army’s Fort Sheridan was a few miles south, near Highwood, Highland Park and Lake Forest, running west from Lake Michigan. Most of Fort Sheridan was closed in 1993, with parts of the old post now the Sheridan Reserve Center.
At present, Great Lakes is the largest of the three major military installations in Illinois, along with Scott Air Force Base near Belleville and the Rock Island Arsenal.
The base vastly expanded during World War I and World War II. Between the wars, parts of the base were closed, only to reopen and grow after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Composer John Philip Sousa, famous for leading the Marine Band, is part of the musical history of Great Lakes. In 1917, then Lt. Sousa was the naval station’s Director of Music, leading its Bluejacket Band, choirs and orchestra.
In its early years, the Great Lakes base also had an aviation component, with seaplanes launched in Lake Michigan. Starting in 1936, the aviation operations were moved to Glenview, in what became the Naval Air Station Glenview, which closed in 1995.
In 1993, Naval Training Centers in Orlando, San Diego, and Great Lakes were consolidated with Great Lakes becoming the Navy's only home to train recruits.
The sign at an entryway calls the base “The Quarterdeck of the Navy.”
How is federal law enforcement using the Naval Station Great Lakes?
Federal agents will be using office space at the base to establish a command center for the 230-agent operation, according to sources familiar with base operations. Per the initial plans obtained by the Sun-Times through emails to base officials, they would be given control of Building 617, which houses the Navy College Learning Center and the Morale, Welfare and Recreation Library,
The base will also serve as a parking lot for the 140 unmarked vehicles used for the blitz, sources previously told the Sun-Times. Federal agents were set to leave the base by 5 a.m. every day so as not to interfere with base operations.
The Defense Department’s request for assistance asked for three nearly 2,400 cubic-foot capacity storage containers for medical supplies and “less lethal munitions,” according to a spokesperson for Sen. Tammy Duckworth.
For months, about 30 to 40 ICE agents had been practicing riot control tactics at the military installation, using flash-bang grenades and marching in phalanxes with shields, which has continued as more agents arrived last weekend, another source familiar with base operations told the Sun-Times.
