The Kordes K orner

John Ellis Kordes

PhotograPhy history

Here is a rare candid image from August of 1917. The road in the foreground is Clinton Road and the view is looking east. The photographer must be standing on a vehicle or something to get that angle. What the photo shows are the troops arriving at Camp Mills during WWI. They got off at the Clinton Road Railroad Station and marched south to the entrance of the camp where Locust Street is today. Tens of thousands of troops arrived that summer and hundreds of tents were quickly put up. Then in 1918 as the war dragged on over 800 buildings were erected. When the war ended in November 1919 the troops came home through this camp. By the 1920s it was all wiped away and houses were being built there.