SPRINGFIELD – Army and National Park Service officials made it finally formal after more than 40 years: the collection of more than 6,000 firearms and other artifacts at the Springfield Armory Museum is now controlled by the Park Service.

At a press event on Jan. 8, Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army Gerald O’Keefe announced the formal transfer of the collection has been made.

The core of the collection, which was started in 1866, belonged to the U.S. Army, the superintendent of the Armory Museum, James Woolsey, explained. The collection was made for research purposes for the engineers at the Armory who designed many of the nation’s military weapons.

The Armory itself became a landmark on the National Historic register in 1960. The Armory closed in 1968 and the museum was designated as part of the National Park Service in 1978 succeeding a private non-profit effort, Woolsey added.

Despite the legislation that created the National Park site, there had never been until now a transfer of the ownership of the museum’s collection.

Stephanie Stephens, the chief curator of the National Parks Service, said the years before the ownership transfer “represented an excellent examples of two agencies working together.”

Woolsey told Reminder Publications that for visitors the transfer doesn’t change the experience provided by the museum, but for the management of the collection it “settles forever” the issue of ownership.

“I’m very happy our friends at the U.S. Army came to this resolution,” he added.

The Armory was established by General George Washington as an arsenal first and then as a manufacturing and research and development facility.  

Congressman Richard Neal noted research that “happened on this site changed world history.”

The Armory was the location for the development and manufacture of the M-1 or Springfield rifle, the semi-automatic rifle that became the standard weapon for the U.S. Army from World War II through the war in Vietnam. The Armory produced more than 6 million M-1 rifles, which had been developed by John Garand, Curator Alex MacKenzie explained.