Camp Barkeley
Caps, Taylor County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(February 15, 1941 - March 21, 1945) Site of main entrance to Camp Barkeley, one of the nation's largest military camps of World War II. At peak, 60,000 men were in training here. Named for Private David B. Barkeley of the 89th Division, who died on a secret scouting expedition behind German lines during the Meuse-Argonne Battle of World War I. Among famous units trained here were the 45th and 90th Infantry Divisions and the 11th and 12th Armored. A medical replacement training center, the largest in the country, was also established here, with 15 battalions. In May, 1942, the Medical Administrative Corps Officer Candidate School was activated and graduated about 12,500 candidates. Camp Barkeley eventually grew to be a complete city unit twice the size of Abilene of the 1940s. It had a 2,300-bed hospital, 2 cold storage plants, a bakery, 4 theaters, 2 service clubs for enlisted men, 15 chapels, and 35 post exchange buildings. The military personnel were housed in hutments, except for some 4,000 in barracks. Part of the post was also a German prisoner-of-war camp. Once some of the prisoners escaped, to the alarm of Abilene citizens, and others attempted to tunnel under the fences. Camp Barkeley was declared surplus in 1945. (1969)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
From 1941 to 1945, Camp Barkeley was one of the nation's largest World War II training posts, holding up to 60,000 men at its peak — a military city twice the size of 1940s Abilene. It trained famous infantry and armored divisions, hosted the country's largest medical replacement center and an officer candidate school, and even held German prisoners of war, some of whom escaped or tried to tunnel out. It was named for Private David B. Barkeley, killed on a scouting mission in the Meuse-Argonne offensive of World War I.
Why it matters
Barkeley shows how the Second World War transformed rural American landscapes almost overnight into vast training cities that shaped a generation of soldiers.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In early 1941 the United States was not yet at war, but it was getting ready for one. Europe had been fighting since 1939, and Congress had passed the nation's first peacetime draft in 1940. Hundreds of thousands of new soldiers needed somewhere to train, and fast. The Army looked for open land, mild weather and good rail connections, and West Texas had all three.
That search turned ranch and farm country outside Abilene into one of the country's largest military camps. Camp Barkeley opened in February 1941, before Pearl Harbor. After the attack that December it filled quickly and went on growing. At its peak it held 60,000 men, so this quiet corner of Taylor County briefly had more people than most Texas cities.
The same thing was happening across the South and West during these years. Camps went up in months, built of quick wooden buildings and served by new roads, water lines and power plants. Nearby towns found their stores, churches and dance halls crowded with young men from every state. Abilene, a modest city of the 1940s, suddenly had a military city twice its size next door.
The camp's life matched the war's. It took shape while America was preparing, peaked while the country was fully mobilized, and was declared surplus in 1945 as the fighting in Europe drew to a close.
People & events
The camp's name looks back to an earlier war. Private David B. Barkeley served with the 89th Division in World War I, in the Meuse-Argonne campaign of the fall of 1918, one of the largest and costliest American offensives in the nation's history. He volunteered for a dangerous scouting mission behind German lines and did not survive it. He was awarded the Medal of Honor after his death. Naming a vast new camp for a Texas private, rather than a general, honored the ordinary soldier, and it fit a camp built to train ordinary soldiers.
The men who came through here went on to serve in the Second World War. The 45th and 90th Infantry Divisions trained here, and so did the 11th and 12th Armored Divisions. Thousands of the men who later fought across Europe learned their trade on these West Texas plains, practicing in the dust and summer heat.
Camp Barkeley also trained the people who keep an army alive. Its medical replacement training center, with fifteen battalions, was the largest in the country. In May 1942 the Medical Administrative Corps Officer Candidate School opened here and went on to graduate about 12,500 candidates. Many of the medics, aid-station workers and hospital administrators who cared for wounded Americans overseas learned their jobs at this post.
Not everyone here was American. Part of the post held German prisoners of war, and they were not always quiet guests. Some escaped, which alarmed people in Abilene, and others tried to dig tunnels under the fences. It's a reminder that the war came closer to the Texas home front than many people now realize.
Its place in the American story
Camp Barkeley is a good example of how World War II changed the United States from the ground up. The country raised an army of millions in just a few years, and it did so by building temporary cities like this one in rural places. Each needed hospitals, bakeries, cold-storage plants, theaters, chapels and post exchanges. Camp Barkeley had all of these, and that shows how complete these places were. They were towns in their own right, built for a single purpose.
The camp's medical work is a less familiar part of that story. Modern war needed huge numbers of trained medical people, and the largest medical replacement center in the country was here in Taylor County. The skills taught here helped improve the odds for wounded soldiers on battlefields far from Texas.
The prisoner-of-war camp ties the site to another national story. Hundreds of thousands of enemy prisoners were held in camps across the United States during the war, many of them in Texas. Their presence brought the war directly into American communities.
Camps like this also left lasting marks on the towns around them. Wartime payrolls, new roads and a flood of newcomers changed many Sun Belt communities. For a generation of young Americans, places like Camp Barkeley were their first real look at the wider country they had been called to defend.
If you visit
The marker stands at the site of the camp's old main entrance. You won't find a preserved city of barracks here. Camp Barkeley was declared surplus in 1945, and like many wartime camps it was largely taken apart. The most powerful thing to do is simply look around. Picture 60,000 men, rows of hutments, a 2,300-bed hospital and the steady traffic of a military city on what is now open West Texas country.
The wide horizon helps you see why the Army chose this spot, with plenty of room to march, drill and maneuver. Try to imagine it on a hot summer afternoon, with dust rising from columns of trucks, then compare that picture with the quiet around you today.
The site is an easy addition to any trip through Abilene and the Big Country. If you're following World War II history across Texas, it pairs well with other wartime sites and with local museums that keep the home-front story alive. Families with a grandparent or great-grandparent who served may find it moving to stand where so many soldiers began their service.
Take a moment, too, for the man the camp was named after. A Texas private who never came home from the Meuse-Argonne gave his name to a place that trained tens of thousands of soldiers for the next war.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · David B. Barkeley
Related events
- · World War II
- · Meuse-Argonne Offensive
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
12th Armored Division at Camp Barkeley
Abilene, TX
Established in 1940, Camp Barkeley grew into one of the nation's largest World War II training bases, at its peak housing more than twice the population of nearby Abilene. The 12th Armored Division arrived in November 1943, drilling day and night with tanks, armored infantry, and field artillery until it qualified for combat and shipped to Europe in September 1944. Nicknamed the 'Hellcats' and dubbed the 'Mystery Division' in General Patton's drive to the Rhine, the division earned more than 800 battle decorations before the camp was deactivated in 1945.
Lt. Col. William E. Dyess
Abilene, TX
This Abilene marker traces the arc of Albany native William Edwin Dyess from aviation cadet at Randolph Field to squadron commander in the Philippines, where he fought on despite crippling losses of aircraft. Taken prisoner at the fall of Bataan in 1942, he survived the Death March and prison camps, then escaped with eleven others in 1943 — reaching Australia by guerrilla contact and submarine. His accounts in the Chicago Tribune exposed conditions in Japanese camps before he died flying a new P-38 over Burbank late that year.
45th Infantry Division at Camp Barkeley
Abilene, TX
The 45th Infantry Division — the 'Thunderbirds,' drawn from National Guard units in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma — was among the first divisions called into federal service in 1940 and relocated to Camp Barkeley near Abilene in early 1941. Finding the camp little more than a tent city on undrained prairie, the soldiers nicknamed it 'Camp Smokey Okie' and trained hard before shipping out through North Africa to Europe. Across 511 days of combat in Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany they earned eight Medals of Honor and helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp in April 1945; the division was recalled for the Korean War, where it suffered further heavy losses.
Cornelia Clark Fort
Merkel, TX
Cornelia Fort, born into an affluent Nashville family in 1919, discovered flying at twenty-one and within a week had logged over 2,000 miles; by 1941 she was an instructor. She was aloft with a student over Hawaii when Japanese planes struck Pearl Harbor, landing safely under fire, and soon joined Nancy Harkness Love's Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. On March 21, 1943, ferrying a BT-13 in formation toward Dallas, her plane was struck and went down in Mulberry Canyon — making her, records indicate, the first American woman pilot to die on active military duty.