Camp Chireno, World War II P.O.W. Camp

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Camp Chireno, the World War II POW camp out in Nacogdoches County. Now, most folks driving Camp Road today wouldn't give the land a second thought. Trees, quiet, maybe a little East Texas breeze.

But pull over and listen, because this stretch of ground has a story that starts with ice, runs through timber, and holds three hundred prisoners of war. Let's go back to January of 1944. An ice storm came through and devastated the area around Chireno.

Trees down, timber scattered, pulpwood just laying waste across the land. Now, two lumber companies took a long look at that wreckage. The Frost Lumber Company out of Nacogdoches and the Angelina Lumber Company out of Lufkin.

They had a problem and, as it turned out, someone had a solution. Those two companies went to the War Manpower Commission, the WMC, and made a request. Establish Camp Chireno, they said, as a permanent branch of Camp Fannin over in Smith County.

The WMC listened. They leased private land, they built a thirty-acre compound right there west of here along Camp Road, and they had themselves a camp. Chireno had something else going for it, too.

Established railroad facilities. In the timber business, that's not a small thing. By May of 1944, the first prisoners of war arrived.

Three hundred of them. And their work was exactly what those lumber companies had in mind. Cutting timber, salvaging pulpwood, working the land that the ice storm had torn apart.

The camp ran until March of 1945, near the end of the war, and then it closed. Thirty acres. Three hundred men.

A patch of East Texas woods that quietly held a piece of the Second World War, right here along Camp Road.

What the marker says

During World War II, the Frost Lumber Co. (Nacogdoches) and the Angelina Lumber Co. (Lufkin) requested that the War Manpower Commission (WMC) establish Camp Chireno as a "permanent" branch of Camp Fannin (Smith County). The WMC leased private land and built the 30-acre compount west of here along Camp Road. Located in an area devastated by the January 1944 ice storm, this camp benefited from Chireno's established railroad facilities. The site first received Prisoners of War (POWs) in May 1944. The camp's 300 POWs spent their time cutting and salvaging timber and pulpwood. The camp closed in March 1945, near the end of the war. Texas in World War II-2008