National Personnel Records Center fire
Fire underway, 1973, Aerial View of MILPERCEN, National Archives.
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| Date | July 12, 1973 |
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| Venue | National Personnel Records Center |
| Location | Overland, Missouri, United States |
| Coordinates | 38°41′06″N 90°22′14″W / 38.68513°N 90.37065°WCoordinates: 38°41′06″N 90°22′14″W / 38.68513°N 90.37065°W |
| Type | Fire |
| Cause | Unknown |
The National Personnel Records Center fire of 1973, also referred to as the 1973 National Archives fire was a fire that occurred at the United States National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in Overland, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, on July 12, 1973, striking a severe blow to the National Archives and Records Administration of the United States. NPRC, the custodian of military service records, lost approximately 16–18 million official military personnel records as a result of the fire.
The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) was created in 1956 as the result of a series of mergers of predecessor agencies beginning after World War II, including the Demobilized Personnel Records Center (DPRC) and the Military Personnel Records Center (MILPERCEN, pronounced "mil'-per-cen") of the Department of Defense along with the Federal Records Center of the General Services Administration. In final form, the NPRC handled the service records of persons in Federal civil service or American military service, overseen by the National Archives and Records Administration of the General Services Administration.
In 1951, the Department of Defense retained the St. Louis firm of Hellmuth, Yamasaki, and Leinweber, architects, to design a new facility for its Demobilized Personnel Records Center. The firm visited several similar operations, including a U.S. Navy records center at Garden City, New York and a Department of Defense facility in Alexandria, Virginia. They studied the functions of each facility and the nature of the storage systems employed. Their report, submitted in February 1952, detailed different approaches used to achieve the respective center's mission. Particularly relevant in light of future events were the findings with regard to fire prevention, detection, and suppression systems. The Naval records center in Garden City, New York, for example, was outfitted with a full fire sprinkler system, while the Department of Defense facility in Alexandria, Virginia was not.
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