Our Family Adventures

Monday morning we are headed out for our first trip of the year. One of the things we really enjoy is digging into the history of the early military camps built here in Louisiana. When I was checking out places for us to head out to and camp this trip, I came across some information on Camp Livingston and it seemed like the perfect place to roam around and explore. Here is an excerpt on the camp:

 

Camp Livingston was open from 1940-1945 and was first known as Camp Tioga. It was renamed Camp Livingston in honor of Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, negotiator of the Louisiana Purchase. It was home to the 28th, 32nd, 38th and 86th Infantry Divisions during the war.
Camp Livingston was designated as an infantry replacement training center, as well as a garrison for these infantry divisions. The 38th Division was known as the “Avengers of Bataan” and the 86th Division was the first American unit to cross the Danube River into Germany. Over 500,000 troops trained on the 47,000-acre base during the war.  On some old concrete walls in the site, beautiful artwork and graffiti has been discovered and is thought to have been drawn by Italian POWs.

During World War II, thousands of Japanese, German and Italian prisoners of war were kept in internment camps at Camp Livingston and Camp Claiborne. In 1942, the first Japanese POW to arrive at Camp Livingston was one who was captured at Pearl Harbor, the survivor of the three-man crew of a mini-submarine which attacked the American fleet on Dec. 7, 1941. The internees at the camps were used to supply logging and farm labor in the area.

Camp Livingston was deactivated in late 1945 and is now part of the Kisatchie National Forest.

Yay! Can’t wait to see what we find out there!