The depot's current functions are designing, manufacturing, repairing, and overhauling electronic systems. These include satellite terminals, radio and radar systems, telephones, electro-optics, night vision and anti-intrusion devices, airborne surveillance equipment, navigational instruments, electronic warfare, and guidance and control systems for tactical missiles. It also operates 30 Forward Repair Activities at central U.S. installations and overseas, including in the Middle East.
The U.S. Army has designated Tobyhanna as its "Center of Industrial and Technical Excellence for C4ISR and Electronics, Avionics, and Missile Guidance and Control". The Air Force has designated Tobyhanna as its "Technical Source of Repair for command, control, communications, and intelligence systems." Tobyhanna has gained new missions and workload in each of the five rounds of Defense Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) between 1988 and 2005.[5]
History
From 1900 to 1936, Tobyhanna Lake and nearby lakes at Gouldsboro and Klondike were sites of ice collection and storage, producing up to 150 boxcar loads per day between them shipped as far as Florida.
In 1912, Tobyhanna had a railway station, telegraph, and post office. At that time, the U.S. Army had no artillery training range east of Wisconsin. Major Charles P. Summerall, commander of the 3rd Field Artillery at Fort Myer, Virginia, chose the site as a suitable training range. After leasing land for $300 in 1912 and 1913, Summerall persuaded Congress to authorize the purchase of 18,000 acres (73km2) for $50,000; eventually, the military reservation was expanded to 22,000 acres (89km2) (according to the Tobyhanna Army Depot) or 26,000 acres (105km2) (according to Pennsylvania DCNR).
The land was used as a tank and ambulance corps training centre from 1914 to 1918, for artillery training from 1918 to 1931 and 1937 to 1941, and to house Civilian Conservation Corps enrolled from 1931 to 1937.[6]
During World War II, initial plans for using the site as a training site for anti-aircraft artillery were dropped due to the long range of more modern weapons. For example, some shells strayed onto private land, and "the Scranton Times reported that crews could only fire one or two shells during each pass of a target, and guns were limited to a 65-degree firing arc".[7] Subsequently, the camp became the base of an all-black segregated ambulance corps, and a military hospital (19 single-story structures) was constructed expecting of casualties from the invasion of Japan. At the end of World War II, the military reservation became one of 138 sites around the United States[8] holding German prisoners of war (a maximum of 300 POWs). It was used to store gliders used in the D-Day invasion.[9] From 1946 to 1948, it was used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In April 1949, most of the military reservation was returned to Pennsylvania, and converted into Game Land 127, Gouldsboro State Park, and Tobyhanna State Park, while 1,400 acres (5.7 km²), after briefly being transferred to Pennsylvania, were reacquired by the Army Signal Corps in 1951 as the Tobyhanna Army Depot. This site was selected as having access to East Coast shipping and manufacturers outside of possible nuclear blast radii surrounding New York City and Scranton. At that time, the decline of anthracite coalmining in the region had led to the unemployment of 35,000 workers, and the new Depot received 600 job applications per day two years before its opening. Tobyhanna is North-eastern Pennsylvania's largest employer.[7]
In 2005, PresidentGeorge W. Bush delivered his Veterans Day address at Tobyhanna Army Depot, commending the installation as a "facility that has provided critical services for our armed forces" and applauded the depot workers as men and women who have been "carrying out dangerous missions with bravery and skill."[10]
In late 2016, it was reported that the depot now uses an anechoic chamber to test radars by simulating signals and targets. The initial cost of the room was recouped in around eight months because the systems did not have to be shipped to the Yuma Proving Ground.[11]
On September 29, 2020, Senate Builders & Construction Managers Inc. was contracted to upgrade and renovate Building 1E at the Depot.[12]
