Fort Bragg was originally established as Camp Bragg, named after Confederate General Braxton Bragg, as an artillery training site in 1918; the area has an excellent climate for daily training, good rail and road connections, and a varied terrain. The camp was used for infantry and "aeroplane" and balloon spotting training in the last year of World War I. The aviation field was later named Pope Field, named after a lieutenant who died when his airplane crashed in a nearby river.


Camp Bragg was briefly in danger of being closed in due to budget cuts after World War I, but post commander General Albert Bowley campaigned for the site, and the camp's status was confirmed in 1922 and renamed Fort Bragg.


Fort Bragg expanded in the 1920s, and continued as a field artillery training location and field experiment site, with Bragg artillerists developing expertise with each field gun in every kind of condition.


With World War II clearly becoming a problem the US would be involved in, Fort Bragg expanded quickly, and began training troops who would later deploy quickly to North Africa and later the European front. A large number of infantry troops trained at Bragg, but the most famous units include all five airborne divisions (11th, 13th, 17th, 82nd, and 101st Airborne Divisions) and other parachute-deployed units, including the all-black 555th Parachute Infantry Brigade. Bragg also trained and deployed many ground-pounding infantry with substantial artillery force, including the 9th Infantry, 2nd Armored, and 100th Infantry Divisions.


After the war, in 1946, the fort became the permanent home of the 82nd Airborne Division. In 1952, the U.S Army Special Operations Command was established at Fort Bragg, further establishing Bragg as a primary power projection base.


From the 1950's to the 2000's Fort Bragg has participated in a series of deployments and philanthropic missions: Operation Power Pack (Dominican Republic 1965), Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada 1983), Operation Hawkeye (U.S Virgin Islands, 1989), Vigilant Warrior (Kuwait 1994), Operation Joint Endeavor (1995). Bragg units also led the way in the Korean and Vietnam Wars and in the War on Terror. Today Fort Bragg is one of the largest military installations in the world, and continues train and field the US Army's best.