Fort Devens Historic District

This military district at Fort Devens, in Ayer and Harvard, Massachusetts, covers about 300 acres of the post's permanent 1930s cantonment. Its buildings were constructed mainly between 1929 and 1940 and follow the street pattern of Camp Devens, the temporary World War I training camp set up in 1917. Housing, administration buildings, barracks, a hospital and a theater are grouped around two parade grounds, Rogers Field and Hornet Field, in a symmetrical U-shaped plan. Nearly all buildings are red brick Georgian Revival structures with slate roofs (now mostly asphalt shingle), limestone or cast stone trim and six-over-six windows. The district counts 93 contributing and 25 noncontributing buildings, plus landscaped sites such as Memorial Circle. It reflects the Army's housing program funded after 1926 to replace decayed wartime construction, and it remains little changed and clearly distinct from later development nearby. Uses continue to include headquarters, guardhouse, theater and museum functions.