#FlashbackFriday: August 1989—The Waco Distribution Center Officially Opens

The Waco Distribution Center officially opened 34 years ago this week, on Aug. 10, 1989. “Official” is the key word there; by August, the DC had been busy for several months.

The DC, about 100 miles south of Dallas, actually started receiving merchandise for processing in November 1988. The first shipment out hit the road on Jan. 24.

The Waco-Tribune Herald ranked the distribution center’s opening as its No. 3 business story for all of 1989.

A little more than a year previously, the Dan Daniel Distribution Center held its grand opening in Newport News, Va. Both DCs were part of an effort to streamline distribution operations in CONUS.

The Exchange’s current other major CONUS distribution center, the West Coast DC, opened July 20, 2001, at the Sharpe Army Depot in Lathrop, Calif., 60 miles east of San Francisco, relocating from a previous distribution center in Oakland.

In this Waco Tribune-Herald photo that appeared in a 1989 Exchange Post, a Waco Distribution Center associate loads a conveyor with products headed to waiting trucks.

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the Waco DC’s Facility Management Department was asked to provide six tactical field Exchanges (TFEs) to support Operation Enduring Freedom and homeland Defense operations. The team completed the task quickly, meeting a two-week deadline.

The Waco DC also provided crucial support during Hurricane Harvey, the February 2021 storm that crippled much of Texas and parts of Oklahoma and Louisiana, and other storms.

On April 1, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Waco DC sent a mobile field Exchange—a day after it was requested—to the New York City area. Exchange driver Eddie Hill picked it up at Fort Dix and drove it to New York City, where it opened at the Army’s field hospital at the Javits Center to support the 3^rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command Soldiers, National Guard members and civilian medical personnel. Eight associates from the Fort Hamilton and West Point Exchanges volunteered to run the MFE in New York City, at the time the epicenter of the pandemic.

As of spring 2023, the 808,000-square-foot Waco DC employed more than 300 associates and supported nearly 180 Exchange facilities in the Central Region, shipping 6.8 million cases annually.

Along with the three CONUS distribution centers, the Exchange operates DCs in Hawaii and Puerto Rico; in Germersheim, Germany; at Yokota Air Base and at Camp Kinser on Okinawa in Japan; and at Camp Humphreys in South Korea.

Source: Exchange Post archives

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Waco Distribution Center prepared this mobile field Exchange—a day after it was requested—that was then transported to support service members and medical personnel at the Army’s field hospital at the Javits Center in New York City.