Camp Adair was a

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Army An army, ground force or land force is an armed force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the land-based military branch, service branch or armed service of a nation or country. It may also include aviation assets by ...

division training facility established north of Corvallis,

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, operating from 1942 to 1946. During its peak period of use, the camp was home to approximately 40,000 persons — enough to have constituted the second largest city in the state of Oregon. The camp was largely scrapped as government surplus following termination of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, with a portion of the site reconstituted as "Adair Air Force Station" in 1957. Part of the former Camp Adair is now contained within the E. E. Wilson Wildlife Area, operated by the

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) is a state government, government agency of the U.S. state of Oregon responsible for programs protecting Oregon fish and wildlife resources and their habitats. The agency operates hatcheries, i ...

(ODFW), with other parts of the camp now incorporated into the city of Adair Village.

History

Background

Planning for a United States Army

cantonment A cantonment (, , or ) is a type of military base. In South Asia, a ''cantonment'' refers to a permanent military station (a term from the British Raj). In United States military parlance, a cantonment is, essentially, "a permanent residential ...

in Oregon preceded the surprise bombing of the American fleet at

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, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. Six months earlier in June, with

already raging in Europe and the ranks of the American military swelling, several potential sites for Army camps in the

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western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

Oregon had been surveyed. Several locations in the vicinity of

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were ultimately rejected and a piece of land several miles north of Corvallis chosen, owing in large measure to the ready availability at a reasonable price of a large contiguous mass of relatively flat farmland with rolling hills, suitable for the Army's training needs. The site was tentatively tapped for development as a cantonment in August 1941, pending the authorization of construction funds.

Establishment

The Shelby L. Stanton, ''Order of Battle: U.S. Army World War II.'' Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1984; pg. 256. site was rapidly constructed in just six months following the Pearl Harbor attack."WWII History Lives on at Camp Adair," ''Corvallis Gazette-Times,'' August 12, 2014; pg. A3. Further expansion followed, with the camp ultimately providing temporary quarters for 2,133 officers and 37,081 enlisted personnel. Camp Adair included about 1800 buildings, of which 500 were

barracks Barracks are buildings used to accommodate military personnel and quasi-military personnel such as police. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word 'soldier's tent', but today barracks ar ...

, and maintained a hospital, a bakery, a post office, a bank, 13 post exchange stores, 5 movie theaters, and 11 chapels, among other structures. The explosion of population at the locale was so great during the wartime years that had the site of Camp Adair been incorporated, it would have constituted the second largest city in the state of Oregon. The size of the Army camp dwarfed the population of neighboring Corvallis, which stood at just under 8,400 in 1940. Although the site was formally dedicated as "Camp Adair" on September 6, 1943, it was occupied by troops for many months prior to that date under the name "Corvallis Cantonment." The camp was named for Henry Rodney Adair, who was a native of Astoria and a member of a prominent Oregon pioneer family.Lewis A. McArthur and Lewis L. McArthur, ''

Oregon Geographic Names ''Oregon Geographic Names'' is a compilation of the origin and meaning of place names in the U.S. state of Oregon, published by the Oregon Historical Society. The book was originally published in 1928. It was compiled and edited by Lewis A. McArt ...

.'' Seventh Edition. Portland: Oregon Historical Society Press, 2003; pg. 140. After graduating from

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), commonly known as West Point, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York that educates cadets for service as Officer_(armed_forces)#United_States, comm ...

, Adair became a cavalry lieutenant; he was killed in northern

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on June 21, 1916, at the Battle of Carrizal during the

Pancho Villa Expedition The Pancho Villa Expedition—now known officially in the United States as the Mexican Expedition, but originally referred to as the "Punitive Expedition, US Army"—was a military operation conducted by the United States Army against the para ...

End of use as training facility

By the end of July 1944 the 91st Infantry Division had been deployed and Camp Adair was abandoned as an Army training facility."Camp Adair: The Story of Camp Adair, Oregon,"
Benton County Historical Society, www.bentoncountymuseum.org/ The base hospital was enlarged to a capacity of 3600 patients and turned over to the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

for treatment of sailors and marines wounded in the Pacific theater. The base was also repurposed as a

prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as Prisoner of war, prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, inte ...

and was used from August 1944 until July 1946 as a detention center for

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and

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POWs.

Termination

After the end of the war, most of the hurriedly constructed wartime structures at Camp Adair were declared government surplus and were sold at auction to demolition contractors, who dismantled the buildings and sold the lumber, windows, and other components for reuse elsewhere. Other buildings were transported intact to other sites and converted to civilian use. In 1957, Camp Adair became Adair Air Force Station and SAGE Support Facility, anticipating the construction of a

CIM-10 Bomarc The Boeing CIM-10 Bomarc ("Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center") (IM-99 Weapon System prior to September 1962) was a supersonic ramjet powered long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) used during the Cold War for the air defense of No ...

launch facility. Construction of the launch facility was not completed due to drastic reduction in the Bomarc program, but the infrastructure that was completed remains at the site. The SAGE facility operated until September 1969 and the station was soon closed.

Chicano-Indian Study Center of Oregon

In 1971, Chicano and Native activists proposed that the vacant base be used for a new Chicano Indian Study Center of Oregon (CISCO), to provide high school and college-level courses, vocational training, child care, and health care. In 1972, after their requests for the site met deaf ears, the CISCO leaders led a group of 200 people from Portland through the

Chemawa Indian School Chemawa Indian School (''pronounced:'' "Chih-MAY-way", ) is a Native Americans in the United States, Native American boarding school in Salem, Oregon, United States. Named after the Chemawa band of the Kalapuya people of the Willamette Valley, ...

to Camp Adair, where they occupied one of the buildings. They eventually acquired ten buildings and solicited funding from private, federal, and state sources to refurbish the campus. The center included an alcohol and drug treatment center that used traditional Native spiritual practices, particularly a daily

sweat lodge A sweat lodge is a low profile hut, typically dome-shaped or oblong, and made with natural materials. The structure is the ''lodge'', and the ceremony performed within the structure may be called by some cultures a purification ceremony or simply ...

ceremony. In 1974, CISCO began work on an oral history and library project. The study center closed on March 31, 1977.

Legacy

In 2010 the city council of Adair Village appropriated more than $100,000 to move two surviving barracks structures to a location near City Hall for adaptation as a historic center. A nonprofit organization called Adair Living History was established at that time and began raising the estimated $850,000 needed to complete renovations of the barracks and other improvements to the new historic site. As of the summer of 2014, plans called for one of the two buildings to be used as a museum of Camp Adair's history and the other to serve as a community center for use of residents of the small town.

References

External links

Henry Adair and Camp Adair
from Salem Online History
Camp Adair history
from ODFW visitor guide to E. E. Wilson Wildlife Area
Historic images of Camp Adair from Salem Public Library
{{Authority control Adair Buildings and structures in Benton County, Oregon Military installations in Oregon Former installations of the United States Army 1942 establishments in Oregon World War II prisoner-of-war camps in the United States 1946 disestablishments in Oregon Military installations established in 1942 Military installations closed in 1946