Camp Pike - World War I

The United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917. To train the huge number of soldiers that would be required, the Army announced its intention of constructing 32 cantonments across the country. Each cantonment would have a capacity of training between 40,000 and 50,000 soldiers at any one time.

By April 15, 1917 the Little Rock Board of Commerce (the predecessor of today's Chamber of Commerce) was actively involved in attempting to get a cantonment located in the vicinity of Little Rock. They formed a Military Affairs Committee which met daily at 10:00 a.m. This committee sent the Board of Commerce's manager, Mr. George Firmin, to the Headquarters of the Southeastern Department in Charleston, South Carolina and from there to Washington, D.C. During these visits he gained valuable information on the conditions that would have to be met for the establishment of a cantonment.

Armed with this information, the Committee began inspecting locations near Little Rock and soon determined that the most suitable location was in an area north of the river. The Committee hired engineers and had a topographical map made of the area showing contours every 10 feet.

About this time the Committee received a lengthy questionnaire from the Southeastern Department. The Committee immediately called together a large number of local citizens and established several working committees to investigate and answer, according to their area of expertise, each of the questions submitted. When this was completed the Committee sent a delegation to Charleston with the completed questionnaire and other data they had prepared, including the topographical map.

The Southeastern Department sent an inspection team to examine and report in detail on the communities that were applicants for cantonments. In the Twelfth divisional area, in addition to Little Rock, these included Fort Smith in Arkansas, Hattiesburg and Holly Springs in Mississippi and Alexandria and Shreveport in Louisiana.

The inspection team raised some serious concerns about the site selected by Little Rock. The primary objections were the presence, during warm months, of the malaria carrying mosquito, the lack of adequate rail service to the proposed site and the lack of an adequate water supply. Not to be deterred, the Military Affairs Committee redoubled its efforts.

The Committee engaged the services of Dr. C.W. Garrison, the state health officer. He prepared a demonstration that showed the mosquito could be completely eliminated for $50,000 and the Committee immediately pledged the money to cover the eradication.

The Committee consulted with the Missouri Pacific Railroad On the lack of rail service. They received positive assurance that Missouri Pacific would, upon the location of the cantonment, immediately begin the construction of a rail line to the site with all necessary side tracks and turnouts. The Railroad guaranteed completion in three weeks.

The Committee then turned its attention to the water supply problem. They engaged the services of expert well men, who concurred with the conclusion that adequate water was not readily available on the site. However, the well men thought adequate water could be obtained from an underground stream in the old river bed in Argenta (now North Little Rock). A test well was sunk and the Committee was able to demonstrate that they could deliver the 2,500,000 gallons a day that was required for the cantonment.

As a result of these efforts, and in conjunction with the information already provided, the cantonment was awarded to Little Rock on June 11, 1917. A major factor in the decision to award the cantonment to Little Rock was the similarity of the terrain to that of European battlefields. The Camp was to be named for General Zebulon Montgomery Pike, the early western explorer who discovered Pike's Peak.

The Board of Commerce called a mass meeting of citizens and announced the award of the cantonment, conditional on the raising of monies to meet the promises contained in the offer. A sum of $230,000 was raised in two days, and a total of $325,000 was raised by the time work had started on the cantonment.

Of the monies raised $187,000 was used to purchase 3,000 acres which were given to the United States. Another $60,000 was spent on leases for another 10,000 acres for the duration of the war, $50,000 was set aside for mosquito control, and $5,000 was spent on wells. The balance was set aside for contingencies.

On June 14, 1917 Major John R. Fordyce departed Washington, D.C. with orders to report to Little Rock for duty as the Construction Quartermaster for Camp Pike. Major Fordyce, a Little Rock native, had been commissioned in the Engineer Reserves in April of 1917 and had been called to active duty on May 24, 1917. Reporting to Washington, D.C., he had spent the next several weeks studying the proposed standard cantonment plans.

Immediately on his arrival in Little Rock, Major Fordyce met with the president of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and within 3 day work had started on the spur to Camp Pike. Realizing that the railroad would take at least three weeks to complete, Major Fordyce constructed a road from the end of the existing railroad to the nearest highway. This one-quarter mile road was put to heavy use until the rail spur was completed on July 15, 1917.

While Major Fordyce was busy getting things started, unknown to him others were trying to get things stopped. In a newspaper article written after the war, Fordyce wrote " I had been on the ground for 10 days, and had sent in all these reports and had gotten up a topographical plan which showed that a splendid camp could be laid out on the ground which the Little Rock citizens had given up to the government. In spite of this, no contractor had been designated to do the work and it began to look as though the plans would fall through. While on duty in Washington, I had seen three or four large cantonment plans for various places which had been sent in to the construction division for consideration, rejected, and the camp locations changed to other places. I began to be fearful that this was going to be the fate of the camp near Little Rock. The plans which I had sent in had been rejected and returned. I had received rush telegrams asking more details about the health conditions and numerous other points on which there seemed doubt. There seemed to be an undercurrent of opposition to all our plans, and the situation appeared so serious that the local committees were just preparing to send another delegation on to Washington to try to find out what was holding up the project and why no contractor had been assigned to begin building the camp. It developed that a number of army officers stationed at Fort Logan H. Roots had made a most adverse report about the location of the camp near Little Rock, and this report had been sent to General Wood, then in command of the Department of the Southeast, at Charleston. When this report was received, General Wood, instead of concurring with the recommendation and sending the report on to Washington, came himself to examine conditions, and after a most thorough and exhaustive investigation into the plan, wired the adjutant general his full approval. After that the contractor was immediately appointed and I was given every facility with which to rush the work. So I feel that but for General Wood and his approval Little Rock would have lost the camp."

The initial construction contract was given to James Stewart and Company of St. Louis and New York and work began immediately in accordance with plans prepared by Black and Veatch, Architects-Engineers of Kansas City, Missouri . The contract was for the completion of 1,100 buildings within 90 days. During the rest of the summer a work force of between 5,000 and 10,000 worked feverishly to complete the buildings and utilities. The weekly payroll exceeded $300,000 a week. In addition to local workers, about 1,500 workers were imported from Puerto Rico and about 3,000 from Texas and Oklahoma to assist in the war construction around Little Rock. The project was receiving between 80 to 100 railcars of lumber a day; about 1,000,000 board feet of lumber received and put up each day.

The first troops began to arrive on September 5, 1917. The first man to register was Walter Sherman Sarten, a farmer from Bentonville, Arkansas. By September 8, 1917 there were 1,500 men in camp; that number would grow to as many as 100,000 by the fall of 1918. Construction on the camp was completed in December 1917.

After arriving at the camp all new soldiers were restricted to barracks for a ten-day quarantine to prevent the spread of contagious diseases. After completing the quarantine the soldiers were issued uniforms and began training. The majority of the soldiers stayed in two story wooden structures. Sleeping quarters were on the top floor and consisted of approximately 100 cots arranged in single rows along the two outer walls and down the middle. Each cot had a mattress filled with straw. Located on the first floor were a mess hall and a squad room. All cots and mattress were moved outside each day, weather permitting, and the floors were scrubbed.

The camp had an immediate impact on the economy of central Arkansas. Although no records exist to determine how much of the camp’s supplies were purchased locally, of necessity a large portion would have been procured from sources in central Arkansas. As an indication of the quantities of supplies needed for the camp, in the first three months of the camp’s occupation, the quartermaster ordered:

Auxlirary Remount Depot #317 was located on 160 acres on the eastern part of Camp Pike.  The Remount Depot was charged with caring for the 3,800 head of horses and mules used by Camp Pike.  The Depot consisted of five barracks, two latrines, an officers quearters and latrine, an administration building, a horseshoers' shop and a saddlers' shop.  Also on the depot were a warehouse, 25 corrals (with 9.5 miles of five-foot high fence), 8,500 feet of double hay racks, 8,000 feet of feed troughs and 69 water troughs. Remount Road in North Little Rock is so named because it was the road to the Remount Depot.