Historical Marker
Camp Ibis
Needles, San Bernardino County · California
Read this plaque against the one at Camp Clipper and the register argues with itself: eleven camps here, twelve there. The count depends on where you draw the Desert Training Center's edge, and nobody has settled it. What is not in dispute is what came out of these camps. The 440th Anti-Aircraft Battalion trained at Ibis among others, shipped for England in December 1943, landed in Normandy three days after the invasion began and finished the war with five battle stars.
Where it stands
34.96952, -114.83265 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Goffs — 14 miA near-ghost on the pre-1931 Route 66 alignment, keeper of a 1914 desert schoolhouse and a WWII Army camp.
- Needles — 16 miRoute 66's Colorado River gateway into California, anchored by El Garces, the Harvey House that Mojave hands built.
- Oatman — 26 miA gold camp in the Black Mountains that outlived its mines, now run by wild burros — reached by the wildest switchbacks left on Route 66, and named for a history worth telling straight.
More markers nearby
- Von Schmidt State Boundary Monument — 10 mi
- Von Schmidt State Boundary Monument — 10 mi
- The Garcés Expedition — 14 mi
- National Old Trails Monument — 15 mi