The Atterbury Files: An Extra Curricular Inquiry Project Illustrating Local History

The people in the rural farmlands and villages of Brown, Bartholomew, and Johnson counties of south central Indiana had been hit hard first by the agricultural depression of the 1920s and then by the Great Depression. But, the bitterest pill to swallow was when World War II started and the U.S. government condemned the land to be a new war base. The farmers and villagers left their land forever, and seemingly overnight, a community sprang up that was the third largest city in the state of Indiana—Camp Atterbury was born. It served as an induction center with training facilities and a prisoner of war camp for Italian and German soldiers. After World War II, the population of Camp Atterbury declined until the Korean War, when the population grew again. After the end of the Korean War, however, the camp disappeared almost as fast as it had appeared. The federal government declared the land to be surplus, but did not offer to return it to the families from whom it had originally been acquired. The deeds to the majority of the old camp grounds reverted to the Indiana National Guard, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Fish and Wildlife Division, Johnson County Park and Recreation Board, and the Jobs Corps. By the 1970s, most of the World War II structures had vanished. The forest quickly reclaimed the land, and only a few lonely footings were left as bleak testimony of the former post.