Camp Alto, World War II Prisoner of War Camp

East Texas sawmills and paper mills lost many of their loggers to the armed forces in the war, and captured German soldiers were brought to the United States to fill the gap, according to Bob Bowman's Texas Escapes column. Most prisoners felled trees and cut them into pulpwood or saw logs, which went by railcar to the mills. Bowman writes that some deliberately slowed their work, believing that lumber shortages would hurt the American war effort. He adds that little remains of the East Texas camps beyond the markers.

What the plaque says

Camp Alto, World War II Prisoner of War Camp The U.S. Army built stateside camps by early 1942 to house prisoners of war (POWs). Camp Alto south of this site was a small branch operation of the Camp Fannin base facility in Tyler. The military set up branch camps to address local labor needs brought about by wartime shortages. With approximately 100 German POWs living in tents, Camp Alto began operating in the fall of 1944. The majority of POWs cut pulpwood for the East Texas ice storm salvage project. With the end of the war imminent, branch camps sent POWs to larger base camps as a step toward eventual repatriation. Its mission accomplished, Camp Alto closed in the spring of 1945 under direction of the War Assets Administration. Texas in World War II - 2006

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Caddo Mounds State Historic Site — 4.9 mi
  Three earthen mounds of an ancestral Caddo village and ceremonial center on the old El Camino Real, settled about A.D. 800 and still sacred to Caddo people, with a grass house and visitor center.

More markers nearby

• Site of the Delaware Indian Village — 0.9 mi
• Robert F. Mitchell — 1.1 mi
• Site of Lacy's Fort — 1.1 mi
• A. Frank Smith United Methodist Church — 1.2 mi