General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold

Arnold's name sits on a test center born of fear. Alarmed by German advances in aeronautics, he asked Theodore von Karman to lead a scientific advisory group, whose report, Toward New Horizons, urged giving American scientists German equipment at a state-of-the-art test site. Camp Forrest near Tullahoma was chosen for its power, water, remoteness and security. Truman dedicated the center in 1951. The surrounding towns took up space-age slogans: Tullahoma became the Wind Tunnel City, and locals still talk of going out to ARO, the contractor that ran the center until 1980.

What the plaque says

General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold General "Hap" Arnold, WW II Commander of the Army Air Forces, is commemorated by the Air Force research and development installation bearing his name. In 1944, he directed long range planning for air research and development to maintain this Nation's air power in the forefront of a new era of flight. The Arnold Engineering Development Center with its facilities for testing advanced aircraft, missiles and space weapons, is a significant result of his vision and foresight.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park — 6.2 mi
  A 2,000-year-old enclosure of piled stone and earth on the bluffs above the forks of the Duck River, built by Native people between about 80 and 550 A.D., with a museum and waterfall trails.
• Sewanee: The University of the South — 17 mi
  The Episcopal university on the Cumberland Plateau, founded in 1857 as a school for the slaveholding South and now examining that history through its own Roberson Project.
• Savage Gulf State Park — 20 mi
  Roughly 19,000 acres of gorge and sandstone bluff on the western edge of the Cumberland Plateau, a state park of its own since 2022, with the Stone Door and a National Natural Landmark.
• Tims Ford State Park — 20 mi
  A lake park on the Elk River below the Cumberland Plateau, made by a 1970 TVA dam on land the Cherokee and Chickasaw ceded by treaty in the early 1800s.

More markers nearby

• Experiment in Armor — 5.8 mi
• Camp Forrest — 12 mi
• Isham G. Harris — 12 mi
• Justice John Catron — 13 mi