Hello everyone,
I am happy for my recent addition to the forums. My name is Michael Mercier and I am the curator for the Camp Butner Society and Museum in Butner, North Carolina. The camp was only in operation from 1942 to 1947 but in the first three years saw an estimated 50,000 soldiers come through for training. Now streets that were once lined with barracks, mess halls and admin buildings have houses and businesses.
Our society has been around for about four years and the hardest part about starting a museum so long after the end of the war is not only finding decent, relevant displays for the museum but conducting research on the numerous units and soldiers that spent time here. We are lucky that we have the original post quartermaster’s log that he listed all the units that came to the camp and noted when they left and among them were numerous engineer units (that I will post about in a different thread).
The museum is the least we can do to honor and remember the soldiers, civilians and even prisoners of war who called Camp Butner home. We are temporarily located in a side room of the camp’s original sports arena that was built in 1942 until we can raise the funds to restore our permanent building. Please visit our official Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/CampButnerSociety
Thanks so much!
Michael