Camp Zachary Taylor was established by Act of Congress for the purpose of training men for World War I. It was situated near Louisville, Kentucky. The original tract comprised two thousand seven hundred acres that was later added to, as more space was required to take care of the men assigned to this training ground. It was the home of the 84th Division.
As time has shown, Camp Taylor forever altered the landscape of the area mostly between what is now Poplar Level Road and Preston Highway. Hastily hammered together, it became the nation's largest military training camp. People considered the camp site "country" before construction began in the summer of 1917. By late August, a complex big enough to house one-fifth of Louisville's population -- 47,500 men at one time -- had risen, stretching from the present-day grounds of Joe Creason Park southwest to Durrett Lane at Preston Highway.
Dark days awaited the entire camp after the war ended. The government moved most of its operations to Camp Dix in New Jersey and sent the artillery to what was then called Camp Henry Knox, now Fort Knox. After serving returning troops, the government chopped the property into parcels and sold it off during the 1920s. The community, annexed by Louisville in 1950, was close-knit, thanks to large families who settled, married among each other and stayed. Many of the homes in the area were built with wood from the barracks, stables, and were built over the concrete pads that were once used as bathrooms and showers for the camp's barracks.
The modest, mostly wood-frame, one-story homes set the tone for the neighborhood. Today, Camp Taylor is filled with clapboard homes, brick bungalows and many undiscernible former latrines. Altogether, more than 125,000 men were trained at Camp Zachary Taylor, but even more were demobilized and discharged there.
DID YOU KNOW:
• F. Scott Fitzgerald was stationed at Camp Taylor and mentions it in his novel, "The Great Gatsby." The character Daisy Fay is from Louisville.
• Nearly 2,000 foreign-born draftees took the oath under a tree on Lee Street. The so-called Naturalization Tree was cut to a stump more than 20 years ago.
• Wooden sewer lines served the camp, and later the community. Many people believe some of the lines are still used, but that's not true. Pipes were shoved through the lines by the late 1930s.
• Although parts of barracks buildings that were converted into homes are difficult to recognize now, many homes with two chimneys, at opposite ends of a structure, are converted barracks latrines.
• The camp contained 2,090 buildings, including 114 officers' quarters, 399 enlisted men's barracks, 284 stables and 12 hay sheds.
This cache is dedicated to my late mother who grew up in this area and told me many stories about this area to include the one about her father (my grandfather) looking out from his Gardener Lane home envisioning a great ring highway around Louisville, ironically he was looking out at a field that would become the Watterson Expressway many years before anyone had planned it.
Cache is a small plastic container, bring you own pencil.
This cache placed and maintained by a member of Geocky, InKy and the Heartland Geocachers
