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Not all buildings will make the cut. A garage built in 1917 will be demolished. A quaint quartermaster’s one-room gas station built in 1932 will be mothballed but won’t be torn down.

Some of the buildings were used up until the late 1970s and early 1980s for storage by the nearby VA Medical Center. But it has been 67 years since the last soldier fixed the last tank inside Building 211.

“They haven’t come to me to talk about their experiences,” said Challeen, the VA engineer. As he spoke recently inside the darkened tank garage, an old door behind him slowly opened and then quietly closed.

It must have been the wind.

 

Mark Brunswick • 612-673-4434