The field was named in honor of squadron flight surgeon Major Frederick L. Detrick who served in France during World War I and died in June 1931 of a heart attack.

The first military presence there was the encampment, on 10 August 1931 (two months after the Major's death), of his unit: the 104th Observation Squadron of the 29th Division, Maryland National Guard.

[9] The same year saw the establishment of the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (USBWL), responsible for pioneering research into biocontainment, decontamination, gaseous sterilization, and agent purification.

This research was originally overseen by pharmaceuticals executive George W. Merck and for many years was conducted by Ira L. Baldwin, professor of bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin.

[11] The Army's Chemical Warfare Service was given responsibility and oversight for the effort that one officer described as "cloaked in the deepest wartime secrecy, matched only by … the Manhattan Project for developing the Atomic Bomb".

In return, director Shirō Ishii provided "8,000 slides of tissue from human and animal dissections" from the experiments, which were reportedly stored at Fort Detrick.

[14] The elaborate security precautions taken at Camp Detrick were so effective that it was not until January 1946, four months after VJ Day that the public learned of the war-time research in biological weapons.

[15] In 1952, the Army purchased over 500 acres (200 ha) more of land located between West 7th Street and Oppossumtown Pike to expand the permanent research and development facilities.

The information gained in this pilot plant shaped the fermentor technology that was ultimately used by the pharmaceutical industry to revolutionize the production of antibiotics and other drugs.

[16] From 1945 to 1955 under Project Paperclip and its successors, the U.S. government recruited over 1,600 German and Austrian scientists and engineers in a variety of fields such as aircraft design, missile technology and biological warfare.

Among the specialists in the latter field who ended up working in the U.S. were Walter Schreiber, Erich Traub and Kurt Blome, who had been involved with medical experiments on concentration camp inmates to test biological warfare agents.

Since Britain, France and the Soviet Union were also engaged in recruiting these scientists, the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) wished to deny their services to other powers, and therefore altered or concealed the records of their Nazi past and involvement in war crimes.

[17] The U.S. General Accounting Office issued a report on September 28, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, DOD and other national security agencies studied hundreds of thousands of human subjects in tests and experiments involving hazardous substances.

The quote from the study: Many experiments that tested various biological agents on human subjects, referred to as Operation Whitecoat, were carried out at Fort Detrick, Maryland, in the 1950s.

However, after the enlisted men staged a sitdown strike to obtain more information about the dangers of the biological tests, Seventh-day Adventists (SDAs) who were conscientious objectors were recruited for the studies.

On Veterans Day, November 11, 1969, President Richard M. Nixon asked the Senate to ratify the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons.

Since that time any research done at Fort Detrick has allegedly been purely defensive in nature,[22] focusing on diagnostics, preventives and treatments for BW infections.

The company's veterinary pathologist sent tissue samples from dead animals to the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, where a laboratory test known as an ELISA assay showed antibodies to Ebola virus.

Thereafter, a team from USAMRIID euthanized the surviving monkeys, bringing the carcasses to Ft. Detrick for study by the veterinary pathologists and virologists, and eventual disposal under safe conditions.

[24][25] In the 1980s and 1990s, KGB disinformation agent Jakob Segal claimed that Fort Detrick was the site where the United States government "invented" HIV.

The FBI's identification of Ivins in August 2008 as the Anthrax Attack perpetrator remains controversial and several independent government investigations which will address his culpability are ongoing.

The Forest Glen Annex of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Silver Spring, Maryland was transferred to the command of Fort Detrick in 2008 as a result of the Base Realignment and Closure process.

[31] A petition organized by the Chinese Communist Party-owned tabloid Global Times urging the WHO to investigate Fort Detrick for COVID origins reportedly amassed 25 million signatures.

[34] A U.S. attorney representing Fort Detrick argued in July 2014 that nonexistent EPA regulation at the time is an exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act and "protects the Army's waste disposal practices".

[37] After the Army denied claims of health problems in 106 Frederick families and individuals in February 2015, the residents filed a class action lawsuit, seeking $750 million for wrongful death and pain and suffering in August 2015.