Stennis Space Center

In 1960, in a national magazine I read an article about the large percentage (60%) of defense spending that was pouring into one state, California.  On the same Sunday afternoon I read an article in the New Orleans Times Picayune that the Army Corps of Engineers were looking for a site near Houma, Louisiana for a static test facility for launch vehicles to be used in the Apollo manned lunar program. 

Louisiana had already got a large plant in East New Orleans involved with the  manufacturing of the first stage launch vehicle in the Apollo program at a plant known as Michoud.  Michoud was a big plant with 40 acres under one roof. Tanks had been made there in the Korean War and in WW2 it was used for building ships.  Why should California get such a large portion of the National Defense Work?  Why should our neighbor, Louisiana get more rocket work and Mississippi none?  These were questions I asked myself.

 

At that time I had just been practicing law at Lumberton, Mississippi since graduating from Law School in 1957 and was not all that busy.  I was also President of the Lumberton Chamber of Commerce.  So I thought it would get the attention of our Governor and Senators to adopt a Resolution of the Mayor and Board of Aldermen of the City of Lumberton, Mississippi urging location of the test facility in our area. I mailed our Governor and U.S. Senators Stennis and Eastland a copy of the resolution.   On the day it was announced by Senator Stennis in the Clarion Ledger Newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi,  I was awakened by a phone call in October, 1961 from Hoyle Byrd, the local Chrysler Dealer, who congratulated me for getting action on the matter and he told me to read the newspaper. The newspaper announced that the facility would locate near Bay St Louis, Mississippi.  He thought my efforts had paid off.   That afternoon, I went to Jackson on business and entered the Heidelberg Hotel and there was Senator Stennis.  Senator Stennis came over to me and said “Bobby I got it within 45 miles of Lumberton.  It had to be accessible by water.”

The only way to move the launch vehicles was by water as they were too large to go by road or rail and they were put on roll on, roll off  barges.   After being tested they were then sent by boat to Kennedy Space Center. Senator Stennis was then on the Armed Services Committee.  The construction of the test facility was the largest construction project in Mississippi and the second largest in the United States at the time.  It was first named Mississippi Test Facility and was later named Stennis Space Center. 

I am convinced that the reason California gets so much Defense work is due to their concerted efforts to obtain same. Since defense work is less than during the Cold War, that  probably accounts for part of California’s now poor economy.