Courtesy Photo | This photo is of the old Camp Exchange on South Post at Fort McCoy, Wis., shown here...... read more read more
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Prior to World War II, Fort McCoy’s South Post was the main operations area for the installation, history shows.
In the area where Fort McCoy’s South Post Housing now stands, only a few remnants are left of the old Camp McCoy and its predecessors, Camp Robinson and Camp Emory Upton. And, until recently, limited documentation remained of the buildings that once existed there.
Fort McCoy Archaeologist Ryan Howell with the Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch said that in late 2020, he was alerted to an old filing cabinet in one of the post’s older buildings that contained decades-old real property books.
Howell said the find, which includes dozens of photos and documents about now-demolished architecture on Fort McCoy’s South Post, is special. It offers a variety of information about what the installation was like from 1909 to the early 1940s, including a full description of the installation’s oldest remaining structures.
“We found real property records of Camp McCoy and Camp Robinson that go back at least to 1909,” Howell said. “This documentation includes dozens of structures that have since been demolished. This documentation includes descriptions and photos of old farm houses, narrow-gauge railroads, old cavalry stables for horses, and more.”
Fort McCoy History and Heritage shows that Camp Robinson and Camp Emory Upton were the first established camps in the area in 1905. That same year, the Sparta Maneuver Tract became a reality on what is known today as South Post.
“The total parcel was divided approximately in half by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Railroad,” the history states. “Situated north of the tracks was a maneuver camp named Camp Emory Upton. An artillery camp known as Camp Robinson went up to the south side of the tracks. Temporary galvanized buildings were constructed in the summer of 1909, and training began. The railroad provided an unloading side track near the artillery camp and ran a spur into the maneuver camp.” Howell said he recently learned that pre-World War I steel from the spur and side tracks was recycled to build the first World War II artillery observation platforms for the impact area.
On Nov. 19, 1926, the history states the overall reservation officially was designated as Camp McCoy in honor of Maj. Gen. Robert B. McCoy, who had died in January 1926.
“A lot of this documentation is also considered good for the archaeological record because it covers many areas where we have had past archaeological digs on Fort McCoy,” Howell said. “This documentation includes building blueprints and sizes and exact locations of buildings that were once there.”
Howell said he plans to have all of the old photos and records scanned to share with others and to be studied further.
“Now that we have a matching map of South Post, we can use these records to ‘virtually rebuild’ the early bases and camps. If we can also find an old map of South Post, we may even be able to rebuild what the area once looked like as we review all of these materials,” Howell said. “And because many of these records are pretty fragile, we can’t just run them through a flatbed scanner or something like that. Instead, we are going to take them to a place where there is an archival scanner that is not hard on these kinds of documents and records.”
The find includes older records of the installation oldest standing building that’s located on South Post — an old concrete storehouse. The building was built in 1911 and its location was once next to the southern spur of the joint Chicago and northwestern-Chicago, Milwaukee, and Saint Paul railways that went through the area. Also known as the Ordnance Magazine, it served as a storehouse for targets and equipment for the adjoining small-arms range on the installation’s South Post.
Howell said he’s looking forward to what else everyone will learn from the records. “This is a significant find for further understanding the history of the installation,” he said.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” and on Twitter by searching “usagmccoy.” Also try downloading the Digital Garrison app to your smartphone and set "Fort McCoy" or another installation as your preferred base.
| Date Taken: | 02.21.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 02.21.2021 02:28 |
| Story ID: | 389482 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 819 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Fort McCoy archaeologist discovers forgotten historical photos, documents, by Scott Sturkol, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
Fort McCoy
