Exchange History Articles
The Exchange made a big move in the fast-food game in 1971 with Run-In Chef, which opened that year in Europe and CONUS. The aafesburger came along a little more than a decade later.
Read More
Post exchanges in Panama date back to the earliest part of the 20th century, when engineers began to build the Panama Canal. U.S. military installations popped up in the Central American country to protect the engineers and, during World War II, protect the Canal Zone. Here’s a pictorial history.
Read More
It’s a history with barber chairs in unusual locations, barbers who’ve given hundreds of thousands of hair cuts, and the occasional celebrity cameo.
Read More
On Oct. 15, 1975—48 years ago this weekend—the Hale Koa resort hotel opened at Fort DeBussy, on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii..The hotel, which includes a PX, was financed entirely by money provided by Exchanges and officer and enlisted clubs.
Read More
Comic-strip character Steve Canyon helped tell the Exchange’s relevancy story. The man who created him was a longtime military story who was unable to serve in the military–so he created characters who could and did.
Read More
Monday will mark the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, when terrorists hijacked jet planes, flying them into both World Trade Center towers and into the Pentagon. Passengers on United Flight 93 died preventing an attack on the U.S. Capitol, overcoming hijackers to crash that plane into a field in Somerset Count, Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000…
Read More
One of the more unusual stories of Exchange support began on Sept. 1, 1960, when the United Nations established a PX in the Republic of the Congo. An Exchange associate was put in charge—and he would have some stress-inducing adventures that weren’t directly related to running the store.
Read More
In August 1992, 31 years ago this week, Hurricane Andrew struck, leaving 250,000 homeless across Florida, Louisiana and the Bahamas, caused more than $30 billion in damage and took more than 30 lives. At the time, it was the strongest hurricane to hit Florida in 60 years. One of the places it hit hardest was…
Read More
Thirty years ago this, the Exchange opened Firestone Master Care Car Center at Fort Lewis. It was the first such facility on a military installation in CONUS, opening a new era for automotive care at the Exchange.
Read More
The DC, about 100 miles south of Dallas, had already been receiving merchandise for processing for months before the grand opening.
Read More