Hawthorne Army Depot (HWAD) is a U.S. Army Joint Munitions Command ammunition storage depot located near the town of Hawthorne in western Nevada in the United States. It is directly south of Walker Lake. The depot covers or 226 sq. mi. and has storage space in 2,427 bunkers. HWAD is the "World's Largest Depot". It is divided into three ammunition storage and production areas, plus an industrial area housing command headquarters, facilities, engineering shops, etc. Background Hawthorne Army Depot stores reserve ammunitions to be used after the first 30 days of a major conflict. It is only partially staffed during peacetime, but provision has been made to rapidly expand staffing as necessary. An independent contractor runs the depot under an agreement with the government. The center's capabilities include demilitarization, desert training for military units, ammunition renovation, quality assurance, ISO intermodal container maintenance/repair, and range scrap processing. History The Naval Ammunition Depot Hawthorne was established in September 1930. It was redesignated Hawthorne Army Ammunition Plant in 1977 when it transferred to Army control as part of the Single Manager for Conventional Ammunition. In 1994, it ended its production mission and became Hawthorne Army Depot. The depot began its existence as the Hawthorne Naval Ammunition Depot (NAD). It was established after a major disaster occurred at the Lake Denmark Naval Ammunition Depot, in New Jersey, in 1926. The accident virtually destroyed the depot, causing heavy damage to adjacent Picatinny Arsenal and the surrounding communities, killing 21 people, and seriously injuring 53 others. The monetary loss to the Navy alone was $84 million, just over $1 billion today (mostly in consumed explosives). As a result of a full-scale Congressional investigation, the seventieth Congress in 1928 directed establishing a Board of Officers to provide oversight of the storage conditions of explosives. A court of inquiry investigating the explosion recommended that a depot be established in a remote area within of the west coast to serve the Pacific area. Construction began on Hawthorne NAD in July 1928, and NAD received its first shipment of high explosives on 19 October 1930. When the United States entered World War II, the Depot became the staging area for bombs, rockets, and ammunition for almost the entire war effort. Employment was at its highest at 5,625 in 1945. By 1948, NAD occupied about of the area under Navy jurisdiction. Subsequently, excess Navy lands were turned over to the Bureau