Author wants Mineral Wells to remember Camp Wolters in new book

Jul. 12—MINERAL WELLS — A Salesville woman who grew up when Fort Wolters was in Mineral Wells' review mirror hopes to preserve its memory in a new book published last month.

"Camp Wolters — Mineral Wells and World War II," (Arcadia Publishing, retail $23.99), focuses on life in the largest Infantry Replacement Training Center in the U.S. and the city that embraced it.

Stacy E. Croushorn's book, which grew from a master's degree thesis, also details the installation's arrival in Mineral Wells thanks to successful lobbying by the Mineral Wells Chamber of Commerce and city leaders.

The 86-page book is backed by a 41-page bibliography of footnotes revealing the exhaustive research Croushorn conducted.

Sources include digital archives at the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Texas, daily newspapers in Fort Worth and Dallas and the former Palo Pinto County Star newspaper.

Born in 1969, Croushorn turned 5 the year Fort Wolters was shuttered as the "Army's primary helicopter training school for the Vietnam War," as the author notes in the book's epilogue.

So, to her, the old Army base was a place teens would cruise when she grew to driving age.

Her parents, Air Force Capt. George A. and June Shewmake Croushorn, met on the base, and her great-grandfather was a builder in the lightning five months given the camp to open after the October 1940 site selection.

"I was just blown away by the history here," she said. "There's a lot of military history here. It has gone through so many evolutions over the decades."

Croushorn took on her research while studying history at the University of North Texas, where one day she and others were engaging in small talk while waiting outside a classroom.

"And we were all talking about where we're from," she said, recalling one response to her being from Mineral Wells. "And somebody said out of the blue, 'Isn't that next to Fort Wolters?' That's when I started really putting questions to my parents and asking them about it. So I slowly started researching, and over the years it just kind of grew and grew."

The work helped her outgrow the impression left on her by growing up in the economic blow Mineral Wells experienced when Wolters was shuttered.

"I had always heard of Fort Wolters in negative terms, because the people of Mineral Wells felt like the Army had turned against them," she said. "It was a very negative thing that adults talked about when I was a kid."

Croushorn learned, though, of how the sleepy town of 6,303 swelled to 11,000 within months — with 18,000 construction workers from inside and outside the city, working on deadline to swiftly expand military readiness for the World War that drew America in just nine months after the first trainees arrived.

She learned that between 200,000 and 250,000 soldiers trained at the base, or 8 to 10 percent of the U.S. Army.

She learned how the camp expanded from 7,500 acres initially to more than 23,000 acres as it grew more and more critical to the military.

She learned Hollywood-bound Audie Murphy trained there before becoming perhaps the most decorated soldier of World War II.

And she learned about Vernon Baker, one of three Black trainees from Wolters to earn the Medal of Honor.

She discovered eight members of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (later renamed Women's Army Corps) arrived for training on June 13, 1943.

She found softball games and dances, and on-base screenings of war-themed movies such as, "Casablanca," "Sergeant York" and "They Died with Their Boots On."

Celebrities visited — Judy Garland, Carmen Miranda, Dale Evans, and Chico Marx brought his "pullman load of talent" to cheer the soldiers.

"My real effort in getting this book out here is for people to understand how important it was and that we had a lot of stuff going on here," Croushorn said. "I wanted people to know about where we've come from, the people that came before us, and not letting that era be forgotten. We owe those people a debt of gratitude."

To boost that goal, the author has set up a facebook group, Military History of Mineral Wells, where she hopes Wolters' legacy will be celebrated.

"I would like some kind of historic building to be representative out there," she said, suggesting a restored guard house. "I would like to have tours going on out there. There's a lot of history out there."

Croushorn will host a book signing, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. today, at Boyce Ditto Public Library, 2300 SE Martin Luther King Jr. St.

The book also is available at The Market at 76067, 100 S. Oak Ave. downtown, on Amazon and at Target and Barnes & Noble.