The First Building of the Military Reclamation (Museum)

　　Introduction: On July 24, 1950, General [name redacted] and Tao Zhizhi, among others, rode horses to the banks of the Manas River to survey the terrain. They proposed that the office location for the 22nd Corps headquarters should be prioritized in the city center. As a result, what is now known as the First Building of the Military Reclamation in Shihezi became the first construction project in the city.

　　At that time, there were no labor tools available, so they asked several Uyghur locals from the old streets of Shihezi to forge them. They built kilns themselves and fired adobe bricks using traditional methods. Logs were fitted with wooden pegs and tied with ropes, and teams of two or three hauled timber from mountainous areas dozens of kilometers away into Shihezi. Engineers were dispatched by the Xinjiang Military Region to form a construction management office, and skilled workers were recruited from Hunan, Shanghai, and Dihua (now Urumqi), who were then trained through workshops. After thorough preparation, the first building in Shihezi commenced construction in May 1952 and was completed by September of the same year. A two-story office building (with a four-story central main section) covering over 5,600 square meters stood tall on the ancient wilderness.

　　At the end of 1994, the Shihezi Culture Bureau reclaimed the building, restored it completely, and established it as the site of the Shihezi Military Reclamation Museum, which officially opened in October 1995.

　　The museum is divided into three exhibition halls. The first hall on the left upon entering is the “Ancient Shihezi” exhibition. It displays over a hundred excavated artifacts including pottery jars, stone tools, fossils, and bronze ware. Among these, the fossil of an eight-toed horse, dating back 3 million years, provides clues for finding traces of early primitive humans in the Shihezi area. The discovery of stone arrowheads is the first of its kind in Xinjiang and offers important material for archaeological research in the region. Turning right at the entrance leads to the second exhibition hall, which showcases the glorious history of the military reclamation efforts. Over a hundred farming tools, clothing, and daily necessities used by the reclamation soldiers are displayed, telling the story of their pioneering and development history. These exhibits illustrate how the military reclamation city of Shihezi evolved from a barren Gobi desert into a modern garden city. Adjacent to it is the third hall, “Footsteps Continue,” which mainly displays over 80 photographs of the reclamation soldiers’ labor and life during the pioneering period, as well as photos of central government leaders visiting Shihezi.

　　 Xinjiang Shihezi