Named for honorary General Colonel Edmund W. Rucker, Fort Rucker was established in 1942 to help support US Army efforts in World War II, converting local unproductive farmland and a wildlife refuge into a training came with housing for 3,200 officers and 39,000 enlisted. Originally slated to be called the Ozark Triangular Division Camp, the War Department changed the name to Camp Rucker just before it opened in May. By September that year, an additional 1,200 acres were acquired for an airfield, known as Ozark Army Airfield. This became known as the Cairns Army Airfield in 1959.


Rucker was deactivated after World War II and reopened for the Korean War with an added helicopter training base. Hanchey Army Heliport became home of the Department of Rotary Wing Training of the Army Aviation School, the first time it was ever consolidated to one place. Camp Rucker became Fort Rucker in 1955.