Camp Adair

Camp Adair
Benton County, near Corvallis, Oregon
Picture of the grounds in 2008
Picture of grounds in 2008
Coordinates	44°42′00″N 123°12′30″W / 44.7000000°N 123.2083333°W / 44.7000000; -123.2083333
Type	Military Base
Site information
Owner	Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife City of Adair Village Private
Open to the public	Yes
Site history
Built	1942
Built by	United States Army
In use	1942-08-15 - 1943-05-10 1943-08-06 - 1943-11-01 96th Infantry Division Deployed to Pacific Theater 1942-09-15 - 1943-08-07 104th Infantry Division Deployed to France 1943-06-15 - 1944-07-25 70th Infantry Division Deployed to France 1943-11-02 - 1944-03-30 91st Infantry Division Deployed to North Africa 1944-07-26 - 1946-07-23 Prisoner Of War Camp.
Demolished	1946

Camp Adair was a United States Army division training facility established north of Corvallis, Oregon, 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 the war, 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 (ODFW), with other parts of the camp now incorporated into the city of Adair Village.

Planning for a United States Army cantonment in Oregon preceded the surprise bombing of the American fleet on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Already in June 1941, with World War II already raging in Europe and the ranks of the American military swelling, several potential sites for Army camps in the Willamette Valley of Western Oregon had been surveyed. Several locations in the vicinity of Eugene 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.

The 57,159-acre (231.31 km²) site was rapidly constructed in just six months following the Pearl Harbor attack. Further expansion followed, with the camp ultimately providing temporary quarters for 2,133 officers and 37,081 enlisted personnel.