Camp Fremont

You are walking through what was once the center of an immense World War I training facility that appeared almost overnight and vanished just as quickly. In the summer of 1917, the United States Army leased thousands of acres of Stanford University land and the surrounding countryside to build Camp Fremont. Within a few months, this quiet area was transformed into a bustling military city of over one thousand wooden buildings, housing nearly thirty thousand soldiers and over ten thousand horses and mules. Before the camp arrived, the local population was barely two thousand people, meaning the soldiers effectively outnumbered the residents ten to one. The military engineers who constructed the base left a permanent mark on the town by installing its first paved roads, gas lines, and water services. Because the camp was designed for speed, most of its structures were temporary and were auctioned off or dismantled shortly after the war ended in 1919. While the bustling tents and barracks are long gone, the influence of that intense eighteen-month period remains embedded in the layout of the city today. You can still find physical reminders of this era hidden in the landscape, including unexploded artillery shells occasionally unearthed in residential backyards and old training tunnels tucked away in the nearby foothills.