Old Camp Wolters
N 32° 49.025 W 098° 04.584
14S E 586458 N 3631386
Texas Historical Marker on the east side of the Mineral Wells High School campus at 3801 Ram Blvd, providing some history of the incorporation and use as a military training site as Camp Wolters.
Waymark Code: WMY8HQ
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 05/10/2018
Views: 2
If you look hard enough, you'll spot some of the old camp's buildings on the school grounds and in the brush. Be sure to take a look at the interesting memorial behind the marker, dedicated to Medal of Honor recipients who trained at Fort Wolters. One of them, Jack Llewellyn Knight, is buried just ten minutes from here in Cool, TX.
Marker Number: 12136
Marker Text:
Established in 1925, Camp Wolters was named for Brigadier General Jacob F. Wolters, commander of the 56th Brigade for the National Guard, and designated a summer training site for horse-mounted cavalry units. The City of Mineral Wells donated fifty acres of land, and later thousands of acres were leased for the camp. By 1927 one thousand officers and men and the same number of horses were encamped here. In 1933 a Civilian Conservation Corps company set up camp at the National Guard barracks and made improvements at the camp and to the city park.
In 1940 Camp Wolters was selected as a major training base for the national military draft. During World War II, the camp became an important infantry replacement training center on 7,500 acres of leased land with a troop capacity that reached a peak of 24,973. The internationally famous "F" Troop of World War II was one of the mounted units that trained here. German prisoners of war also were housed at the camp.
After the war's end, the camp was deactivated by the Army. The original old Camp Wolters site was returned to the National Guard and used for local purposes until 1965. (1997)
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