McCulloch County, Texas Military HistoryCivil War:
McCulloch County was not organized in time to have a representative at the secession convention of 1861, and its involvement in the Civil War was limited. Indians, not Yankees, presented the more immediate threat to people who had settled there by the 1860s. Confederate volunteers from McCulloch and other frontier counties were stationed at outposts such as Camp San Saba to protect settlers from Indians after federal troops withdrew from the area in 1861. See the McCulloch
County archives for Confederate Veteran pensions. These are for
pensions applied for in Texas, no matter where the veteran served.
World War II
Brady was declared a National Defense Area, and a new airport facility,
known as Curtis Field, was built in 1941. McCulloch
County had one other military facility during World War II.
Construction of a prisoner-of-war internment camp was begun two miles
east of Brady in June 1943; the first prisoners began arriving in
October of that year. The camp, which covered 360 acres and included
about 200 buildings, had a capacity of 3,000. The prison population was
made up of "troublemakers" transferred
from other camps in the United States; among them were members of
Rommel's
Afrika Corps, as well as members of the S.S. and the Gestapo. The camp
was
deactivated in May 1945. In 1946 the state of Texas made arrangements
to
lease the facility for use as a training school for delinquent black
girls.World
War II Casualties Bibliography: "MCCULLOCH COUNTY." The Handbook of Texas
Online. <http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/MM/hcm7.html>
[Accessed Sat Jul 12 2003 ]. <http://www.accessgenealogy.com/worldwar/texas/mcculloch.htm> [Accessed Sat Jul 12 2003 ].
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