East Texas

A new Camp Fannin historical marker is set to be dedicated at 3 p.m. Thursday at the U.S. Postal Service East Texas Processing & Distribution Center at 12621 FM 3311.

Robert Reed, president of the Smith County Historical Society, said the marker will note the history of the prisoner of war camp that was housed within the sprawling World War II training center north of Tyler.

Camp Fannin was an Infantry Replacement Training Center housed on 15,000 acres. Starting in August 1943, the camp trained as many as 40,000 men every four months.

Reed said the ceremony will draw attention to its often overlooked role of housing prisoners of war.

“From October 1943 to May 1946, German prisoners of war were held at Camp Fannin Internment Camp,” he said. “Isolated in the northeast portion of Camp Fannin and surrounded by barbed wire and towers with 30 caliber machine guns, fifty barracks, each housing twenty men, were built along with support buildings. With the shortage of manpower on the home front during the war, the War Department allowed the use of the POWs as labor for East Texas forestry and agriculture.”

Set to participate in the marker ceremony are William McWhorter of the Texas Historical Commission, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, state Rep. Leo Berman, state Sen. Kevin Eltife and Mayor Barbara Bass.

The marker is to be unveiled by Bob Bowman of the Texas Historical Commission and John Anderson of the Camp Fannin Association.

The site of the ceremony is roughly the location of the POW camp. The marker will later be erected on the west side of U.S. Highway 271, north of the UT Health Science Center, next to the historic marker for Camp Fannin.