Camp Claiborne

Camp Claiborne is a WWII abandoned military camp located in Louisiana.

Welcome to the new website. Your help is needed to submit photos and stories of the camp. Some of my photos were lost when the photo hosting service shut down I am trying to recover them and move them to my site

Camp Claiborne is located in Rapides Parish Louisiana, South of Alexandria on US165 north of Forrest Hill on Highway LA112. It was created on June 10, 1930 and named Camp Evangeline later named after the first Gov William C.C. Claiborne From 1939 to 1940 the camp was expand and finaly activated in 1940. My grandfather worked as an electrician in construction of this camp.

From 1939 to 1946 over 500,000 troops went through Camp Claiborne it was the 3rd largest city in Louisiana. The camp was mainly used for basic training and artillery practice, which included the nearby Winn District-Kisatchie Precision Bombing Range. Engineering unit and special service forces training was also conducted there, including railroad battalion training.

In 1941 the camp was part of the Louisiana Maneuvers, a 400,000 man training exercise involving two imaginary countries fighting each other. The two armies faced each other across the Red River, including part of East Texas.

Near the end of the war German (POWs) were held at the camp.

The camp was deactivated in late 1945 and is now part of the Kisatchie National Forest.

Many of the old streets are paved and can still be driven down in a car. In fact the main road through the base was turned into LA112 and LA497 uses the streets to go south to Forrest Hill.

If you have any Camp related photos or documents please submit them to the website so we can archive them for viewing.