First doughboys arrive at Camp Custer
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It was September 1917 that the first draft contingent arrived via the interurban at Camp Custer — the Army training camp carved out of the rolling countryside chose by Spiritualists before the Civil War for a Utopian city named Harmonia. On June 11, 1917, the federal government announced its selection of the site for the camp, which cost $8 million to construct and, when first opened, contained 2,000 structures ready to accept more than 36,000 troops. Material used to build the camp would have filled a freight train 36 miles long. During World War I, 90,000 men passed through Camp Custer, and 100,000 demobilized there after the war. The military reservation — later named Fort Custer — ceased to be on June 15, 1968, when the U.S. government declared the land federal surplus property.