Sen. McConnell comes to Fort Knox to celebrate its historic announcement

FORT KNOX, Ky. (WDRB) -- When the tank training school left Ft. Knox a decade ago, there were real concerns in Radcliff about the future of the post. Now,

Sen. Mitch McConnell is celebrating the news that the Army is locating its fourth headquarters at Fort Knox adding more than 600 new soldiers to the post.

"This sure is a happy day," he said. "We couldn't be happier about that. There was a lot of competition, as you can imagine, for this fourth corps headquarters, and we're exceedingly happy that we won."

The influx of new soldiers and their families means a big boost for the region's economy. Fort Knox already has a $2.5 billion impact on the area.

"With that command is going to come logistics, support, families — that's going to be a huge impact," Radcliff Mayor JJ Duvall said. "Because a lot of those contractors and people that are looking to locate to follow this command are going to want to locate off the installation."

Local leaders gave credit to McConnell's clout as Senate majority leader for securing the prize.

"Leadership really counts. It certainly does," Hardin County Judge Executive Harry Berry said. "There are a lot of teams, working in some 30 communities around this nation, that vied for this position, jockeying to be in this position, competing for this announcement."

And the news comes at a good time for McConnell, who is facing a potentially tough re-election campaign.

"As I've said repeatedly, I'm one of four Congressional leaders, the only one not in New York or California," he said. "So I'm in the middle of every decision, in a position to advantage Kentucky every change I get."

The soldiers from the new command will begin arriving here by the end of this year.

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