Site of World War II Prisoner of War Camp
Wharton, Wharton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Included in a land grant awarded in 1824 to Martin Allen, one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred" colonists, this property has had a long and varied history. In the 1840s Allen's heirs sold most of his land to Albert Clinton Horton, Wharton County planter, Texas revolution veteran, and the state's first lieutenant governor. Horton's heirs sold the property in 1930 to a group of investors who planned to develop the area into a county fairground, and several structures were built on the site. Fair organizer sold the land to the county in 1942. During World War II, over 50,000 German prisoners of war were interned in camps throughout Texas. Camp Swift in Bastrop County operated a number of branch camps along the Texas Coast, and in 1943 Camp Wharton was established at this site. The old county fair buildings were converted for use by the prisoners and U. S. Army, and the prisoners worked as farm laborers throughout Wharton and Colorado counties. (1991)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This Wharton County land began as part of an 1824 grant to Martin Allen, one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred" colonists, and later belonged to Albert Clinton Horton, Texas's first lieutenant governor. During World War II, when more than 50,000 German prisoners of war were interned across Texas, Camp Wharton was established here in 1943 as a branch of Camp Swift. Converted from old county-fair buildings, it housed prisoners who worked as farm laborers throughout the surrounding counties.
Why it matters
The little-known network of POW camps brought the global reach of World War II home to rural America, where enemy prisoners helped bring in the harvest.
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Related people
- · Martin Allen
- · Albert Clinton Horton
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First United Methodist Church of Wharton
Wharton, TX
Methodism reached this part of Texas as early as 1835 with a camp meeting at Egypt, and the Wharton congregation began meeting in 1859, organizing formally in 1865. It built its first church on Caney Street in 1885 and moved to Fulton Street in 1898, only to lose one sanctuary to an 1909 storm and its replacement—along with the church's early records—to a 1925 fire. The congregation settled at its present site in 1972 as several smaller area Methodist churches merged into it.
Wharton Cemetery
Wharton, TX
When Wharton County was organized in 1846, its seat was laid out on the Mexican land grant of 'Old 300' colonist William Kincheloe, and in 1866 the commissioners formalized a cemetery already in use just blocks from the courthouse. Its oldest marked grave dates to 1843, and among those buried here is Amanda Armstrong Watts, Wharton's first public schoolteacher and its postmistress in 1881. More than 140 veterans of conflicts from the Civil War through Vietnam rest amid the obelisks, cairns, and decorated ironwork that make the grounds a study in cemetery design.
Albert Clinton Horton
Wharton, TX
Albert Clinton Horton came to Texas in 1834, raised volunteers in Alabama for the revolution, and served as a cavalry colonel before helping launch the Republic of Texas — chairing the commission that chose Austin as its capital in 1839. When Texas joined the Union in 1845 he became its first lieutenant governor and served as acting governor while Governor Henderson fought in the Mexican War. A planter and a founder of Baylor University, he lived at "Sycamore Grove" near this site.
First Baptist Church of Wharton
Wharton, TX
Baptist worship in this corner of the Colorado River bottoms may reach back to about 1822, in the home of "Old 300" colonist William Kincheloe, one of Stephen F. Austin's original settlers. A Sunday school followed around 1829-1830, and a formal congregation was organized by 1847, becoming a founding member of the Colorado Baptist association that year. Known since 1913 as the First Baptist Church of Wharton, the fellowship built its first sanctuary in the late 1850s.