 The project of constructing an army airfield, which later became McChord Air Force Base, directly north of the Fort Lewis installation, received approval as a WPA project in January 1938, and $61,730 was allocated for construction.The allocation provided for clearing, grading, and leveling a runway long by wide.From 1942 to 1943, forty-two Japanese, German and Italian Americans were held at Fort Lewis as part of the government's "enemy alien" internment program during World War II.