Roosevelt Hall (National War College)

Roosevelt Hall
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Roosevelt Hall on Fort McNair houses the National War College.
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Location	Washington, D.C.
Built	1903-07
Architect	McKim, Mead, and White
Architectural style	Neo-Classical; Beaux Arts
NRHP reference #	72001535
Added to NRHP	November 28, 1972

Roosevelt Hall (1903–07) is an immense Beaux Arts-style building housing the National War College on Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC, USA. The original home of the Army War College (1907–46), it is now designated a National Historical Landmark (1972) and listed on the National Register of Historic Places (1972).

Roosevelt Hall was originally built as the central focus of enormous complex envisioned by President Theodore Roosevelt and Secretary of War Elihu Root to house a General Staff School for senior U.S. Army officers. The historic Washington Arsenal (which became Fort McNair in 1948) was selected as the site. Between 1901 and 1903, the early 19th-century arsenal buildings were razed to make way for the projected complex. As many as fifty additional buildings were envisioned, including barracks, mess halls, and faculty quarters, but only Roosevelt Hall was completed and the ambitious plan was never realized in its entirety. The cornerstone for Roosevelt Hall was laid on February 21, 1903, and on June 30, 1907, the building was occupied for the first time.

Roosevelt Hall housed the Army War College (AWC) from 1907 to 1946 when that institution moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas (and a year later to Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania). Since 1946, it has housed the National War College (NWC), a training and doctrine institution embracing all branches of the armed forces, as well as the Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency. The role of the NWC closely parallels that of the AWC, but on a broader, multi-service basis.