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Fort McPherson was a U.S. Army military base located in Atlanta, Georgia, bordering the northern edge of the city of East Point, Georgia. It was the headquarters for the U.S. Army Installation Management Command, Southeast Region; the U.S. Army Forces Command; the U.S. Army Reserve Command; the U.S. Army Central. Situated on 487 acres and located four miles southwest of the center of Atlanta, Fort McPherson has history as an army post dating back to 1867.
Named after Major General James Birdseye McPherson, the fort was founded by the U.S. Army in September 1867 on the grounds where Spelman College is now located. During the Reconstruction Era, between 1867 and 1881, it was named the "McPherson Barracks", and served as a post for U.S. troops in Atlanta, garrisoning elements of the 2nd, 16th and 18th U.S. Infantry Regiments and the 5th Artillery during their mission to enforce U.S. regulations after the American Civil War.
With the end of Reconstruction, the barracks were closed and sold off in 1881, though the site continued to be used during summers by U.S. troops stationed in Florida. In 1885, the land was again purchased by the Army at which to station ten Army companies.
During World War I, Fort McPherson was used as a camp for Imperial German Navy prisoners of war and as a training site for the Active Army and Georgia National Guard. A rifle range was operated along the ridge where current Stanton road now exists. The deploying officers and NCOs surveyed the local Civil War entrenchments parallel to the railroad along Utoy Creek to learn about trench warfare.
During the General Textile Workers Strike in 1934, the fort was used as a detention center to hold picketers who had been arrested while striking at a cotton mill in Newnan, Georgia.
Fort McPherson's nearest Army neighbor, and its sub-post, was Fort Gillem, previously established as the Atlanta Army Depot in 1941, is located in Forest Park, Georgia, approximately 11 miles to the southeast. Fort Gillem was a logistical support base, housing some Army, Department of Defense, and other government agencies. Those units include the First Army, the U.S. Army and Air Force Exchange Distribution Center, the Military Entrance Processing Station, and the U.S. Army Second Recruiting Brigade. Fort Gillem was also the host to the only crime lab of the U.S. Army. Fort McPherson and Fort Gillem shared most common services. Since the closure of Fort McPherson, Fort Gillem has been reduced to the Gillem Enclave partnership with Fort Gordon, both due to the 2005 BRAC commission.
In 2007, 2,453 active duty soldiers and 3,784 civilian employees were at both forts, with a total active duty and civilian employee payroll of $529,874,972.
With only 102 family quarters and 272 single soldier billets at Fort McPherson, and 10 family quarters at Fort Gillem, the active duty military and Department of the Army civilian employees lived in civilian housing in the surrounding Fulton, DeKalb, Clayton, Fayette, and Henry Counties.
Other important users of the fort facilities were the 98,700 or more Atlanta area military and naval retirees and their family members. These residents live mostly in Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Clayton, Fayette, Gwinnett, and Henry counties.