When the Soldiers Came to Town: Spartanburg's Camp Wadsworth (1917-19) & Camp Croft (1941-45)
During World War I and World War II, more than 350,000 men on their way to battlefields abroad came to Spartanburg to learn to be soldiers at the training camps of Wadsworth and Croft. The story of how wartime preparation changed them, and how they in turn changed Spartanburg, is the focus of Hub City’s When the Soldiers Came to Town, a lively, illustrated history edited by Susan Turpin, Carolyn Creal, Ron Crawley, and James Crocker. Few traces remain of the 2,000-acre Wadsworth training facility and the 20,000-acre Croft complex. Many of the soldiers who trained there are gone as well.