First, there was war.....
The post was originally named Camp Meade for Major General George Gordon Meade, whose defensive strategy at the Battle of Gettysburg proved a major factor in turning the tide of the Civil War in favor of the North.

During World War I, more than 100,000 men passed through Fort Meade, a training site for three infantry divisions, three training battalions and one depot brigade. In 1928, when the post was renamed Fort Leonard Wood, Pennsylvanians registered such a large protest that the installation was permanently named Fort George G. Meade on March 5, 1929. This action was largely the result of a rider attached to the Regular Army Appropriation Act by a member of the House of Representatives from the Keystone State.

Fort George G. Meade became an Army installation in 1917. Authorized by Act of Congress in May 1917, it was one of 16 cantonments built for troops drafted for the war with the Central Powers in Europe. The present Maryland site was selected on June 23, 1917. Actual construction began in July. The first contingent of troops arrived here that September. In 1919, the Office of the Chief of the Tank Corps was established here. In January 1920, the Tank School came here. It was transferred to Fort Benning, Ga., in 1932.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower (then major) and Gen. George Patton (then lieutenant colonel) were among those who served with the Tanks Corps and Tank School.

Fort Meade became a training center during World War II. Its ranges and other facilities were used by more than 200 units and approximately 3,500,000 men between 1942 and 1946. The wartime peak-military personnel figure at Fort Meade was reached in March, 1945--70,000. With the conclusion of World War II, Fort Meade reverted to routine peacetime activities, but was later to return to build-up status. Many crises, including Korea, West Berlin and Cuba, along with Vietnam-related problems, were to come.

One key post-World War II event at Fort Meade was the transfer from Baltimore, on June 15, 1947, of the Second U.S. Army Headquarters. This transfer brought an acceleration of post activity because Second Army Headquarters exercised command over Army units throughout a then seven-state area. A second important development occurred on January 1, 1966, when the Second U.S. Army merged with the First U.S. Army. The consolidated headquarters moved from Fort Jay, N.Y. to Fort Meade to administer activities of Army installations in a 15-state area.

In August 1990, Fort Meade began processing Army Reserve and National Guard units from several states for the presidential call-up in support of Operation Desert Shield. In addition to processing reserve and guard units, Fort Meade sent two of its own active duty units--the 85th Medical Battalion and the 519th Military Police Battalion--to Saudi Arabia. In all, approximately 2,700 personnel from 42 units deployed from Fort Meade during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

Today, Fort Meade provides support and services for 114 tenant units which include Headquarters, First U.S. Army-East, and the National Security Agency.

...then came DINFOS.
In 1991 the American Forces Information Service (AFIS) requested the Interservice Training Review Organization to study the potential for consolidating the three schools providing public affairs, visual information, and broadcast training into a single, joint facility. This study was completed in January 1992 and concluded that consolidation was both feasible and cost-effective.

On July 28, 1992 the Deputy Secretary of Defense approved the functional transfer and consolidation of Service training for public affairs, visual information, and broadcasting into a single, joint educational facility at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. Effective in fiscal year 1993, the Navy's School of Photography at Pensacola Naval Air Station and the visual information and broadcast elements of the Air Force 3420th Technical Training Group were transferred to the American Forces Information Service (AFIS), a DoD Field Activity under the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs). The Defense Information School was transferred to AFIS under the Program Budget Decision 752.

In November 1992 AFIS requested the Army Corps of Engineers to audit the requirements for the consolidated school, including required personnel strengths, facility requirements, construction costs, and other factors. Based on the findings of the audit, the decision was made to fund construction of the school. The Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program funded the movement of the Defense Visual Information School (Lowry AFB) and the Defense Information School (Fort Benjamin Harrison).

On November 1, 1993, the Defense Visual Information School Advance Party occupied temporary facilities at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, established its presence, and coordinated support for the shipment of equipment and personnel from Colorado. Training ended at Lowry Air Force Base with the graduation of the last classes on April 30, 1994, and on August 9, 1994 the first class of the Basic Television Equipment Maintenance Course began in the temporary facilities at Fort Meade.

The move of training from Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana began in April 1995, and the last Basic Journalism class graduated on the 30th of June 1995. In 1995, ground was broken for the Defense Information School (DINFOS) at the corner of Simonds Street and Zimborski Avenue. DINFOS, which was completed in 1997, consolidated three service information schools into the only Department of Defense school in the country that trains students in public affairs-related career fields.

Just as NSA had brought more military members here from various services in the 1950s, DINFOS added more Marines, Sailors, Coast Guardsmen and Airmen to this Army post in the 1990s.