A history of Camp Croft,
then and now
Postcards, papers and photographs of Camp Croft from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗A U.S. Army base named Camp Croft was organized on what is now the area of the Camp Croft CDP during World War II. The base served as an Infantry Replacement Training Center and trained 60,000 soldiers per year from 1941 to 1946. Among the trainees was Henry Kissinger. Kissinger was naturalized at Camp Croft and would later serve as Secretary of State under President Nixon. In the later years of the war, a prisoner-of-war camp was established at Camp Croft and almost 1,000 German prisoners were held there. After the war, Camp Croft was not retained as a military installation and the land was returned to civilian control. The former base was redeveloped partly as a residential neighborhood and partly as Croft State Park.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Camp Croft’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
1 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewWife of a construction worker fro…, 1941: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people close to Camp Croft
See all 33 →
Camp Croft, decade by decade
LOCWife of a construction worker from Camp Croft. They live in…1941
LOCLandowner who was moving some of his property out of the Ca…1941
LOCChildren of a squatter family and the house in which they l…1941
LOCMoving the household belongings of the Harvey sisters out o…1941
LOCNegro family who has moved out of the Camp Croft area picki…1941
LOCPrefabricated houses being constructed near Pacolet, South …19411990s
Nothing in Camp Croft is on the National Register yet
That’s true of most small towns. It doesn’t mean Camp Croft has no history, only that no one has written up a nomination. The closest listed place is Walker Hall in Spartanburg, 0.9 miles away.
Camp Croft and the nearest listed places
How a place gets listed
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Wife of a construction worker from Camp Croft. They live in a trailer camp near Spartanburg, South Carolina (1941) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom the Library of Congress (6). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.