Editing Camp Swift, Texas (section)

==History==
The Army signed a $25 million contract in January 1942 to build a training camp on 56,000 acres north of [[Bastrop, Texas]]. The contract stipulated the  project was to be completed in 108 working days. Twenty-seven hundred buildings were built during [[World War II]], but none of those remain on the site today. At the end of the war, they were sold or donated and relocated. The gymnasium was relocated to Whitney, Texas. It is still in use today by the school district.

During World War II, German [[prisoners of war]] began arriving and at peak numbered 10,000.  At the same time, the camp held 90,000 GIs, making it "one of the largest army training and transshipment camps in Texas" according to Krammer.<ref name="Krammer">{{cite book|last1=Krammer|first1=Arnold|title=Nazi Prisoners of War in America|date=1979|publisher=Stein and Day|location=New York|isbn=0812825713|page=[https://archive.org/details/naziprisonersofw00kram/page/90 90,260]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/naziprisonersofw00kram/page/90}}</ref>

In December 1942, Sgt Walter Springs was gunned down by a White military police officer following a dispute as Springs was reporting to Camp Swift. Springs was shot in the back, but the case remains largely unsolved to this day. A memorial scholarship in his honor has been active at his alma mater, [[Regis University]], for most of the period since 1952 and has the backing of former NBA All Star [[Chauncey Billups]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Reed|first=Byron|date=2021-05-17|title=Regis University restarting scholarship named for Walter Springs|url=https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/regis-university-walter-springs-scholarship/73-5d591dc8-8bd8-46c4-b38d-394237b304f0|access-date=2021-06-06|website=KUSA.com|language=en-US}}</ref>

The [[10th Mountain Division (United States)|10th Mountain Division]] trained at Camp Swift in 1944. The [[2nd Infantry Division (United States)|2nd Infantry Division]] trained there mid 1945 to early 1946. The camp also trained [[nurse]]s under battlefield conditions. The camp trained some 300,000 soldiers before the war ended.

After World War II, most of the land was returned to its former owners. The U.S. government retained 11,700 acres as a military reservation as well as a smaller parcel for [[Federal Correctional Institution, Bastrop|FCI Bastrop]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/camp-swift |title=Camp Swift |access-date=2024-01-29 |archive-date=2023-08-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230811213356/https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/camp-swift }}</ref>

The Texas Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, the Auxiliary of the [[United States Air Force|Air Force]] has held its encampment, a one-week high intensity simulated military training program for Cadet (leaders in training) members in Camp Swift since 2011.
<ref>https://www.capmembers.com/cadet_programs/activities/encampment/winter-2016-encampments/{{Dead link|date=October 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>