Camp Bowie in World War I

🏛️The era

When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, the U.S. Army was small by European standards. To fight in France, the nation had to raise, train and ship an enormous force almost from scratch, and National Guard units from the states became a key part of that effort.

All over the country, training camps sprang up on open land, often near growing cities with rail connections. Fort Worth was one of those places. On the undeveloped western edge of the city, the Army established Camp Bowie to train the National Guard of Texas and Oklahoma.

The camp was named for James Bowie, one of the commanders who died at the Alamo during the Texas War for Independence. Choosing a name from Texas's own revolution tied the new citizen-soldiers to a story their state already held dear.

👥People & events

Camp Bowie was occupied in July 1917, and conditions at first were rough. The site was an undeveloped suburb, and the first troops to arrive slept in the deep Johnson grass that covered the ground. By November 1917 the camp held some 25,000 men of the newly organized 36th Division, which made its headquarters here.

On July 8, 1918, the division shipped out for France, where it was assigned to form a reserve for the French Armies of the Center. After nightfall on October 6, the men of the 36th moved up into a segment of the fighting front. On October 8, joined by elements of the U.S. 2nd Division, they captured the village of St. Etienne-a-Arnes.

From October 10 to 28 the division fought in the Meuse-Argonne operation, the vast Allied campaign that broke the German Army and helped bring the Armistice of November 11, 1918. In the closing weeks of the war, Choctaw soldiers among the division's Oklahoma troops are widely credited with sending messages in their own language, an early use of what Americans would later call code talkers.

The division began sailing home the following May, and all its men were back on U.S. soil by June 11, 1919. It was soon demobilized, and between July 1919 and August 1920 the camp it had called home went back to civilian use.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

Camp Bowie shows how quickly the United States turned ordinary citizens into a modern army. Within roughly a year, farmers, clerks and ranch hands from Texas and Oklahoma trained in a Fort Worth field and then fought in one of the largest battles in American history.

The Meuse-Argonne campaign, where the 36th Division fought, involved more than a million American soldiers and was among the costliest campaigns the U.S. Army has ever waged. The division's part in it links this Fort Worth neighborhood directly to the war's decisive final weeks.

The camp's legacy did not end in 1920. When the Texas National Guard went to war again in World War II, its new camp at Brownwood was also named Bowie. That carried the name and the tradition into a second world war.

🧭If you visit

Today nothing of the camp's tents and drill fields survives. The ground it occupied is now a settled part of west Fort Worth. The clearest trace is in the name: Camp Bowie Boulevard runs through the area and keeps the memory of the camp alive for anyone who drives it.

As you stand near the marker, picture this land as tall Johnson grass, with thousands of young men from Texas and Oklahoma bedding down in it in the summer of 1917. That contrast between the quiet neighborhood today and the crowded wartime camp is the heart of the visit.

Fort Worth's Cultural District is nearby, so it's easy to pair this stop with museums and a stroll along the boulevard. For history-minded travelers, it makes a fitting stop on a broader tour of Texas's military past.