If you look up 1225 Meadow Lane Road in Dunwoody on Google maps, you end up in the middle of the road between Walton Ashford Apartments Homes and Target near Perimeter Mall. This is where Country Squire Farm was located, the home of Arthur King Adams and Marie Butler Adams.

I was recently told that Ed Labon of Woodville, Greene County, Georgia, a Black soldier who reported to Camp Gordon in 1917, is buried at Wilson Cemetery in Penfield, Georgia. He died April 13, 1940. Like many Black recruits, Labon was in the 157th Depot Brigade during World War I.

World War I ended on November 11, 1918, but Camp Gordon, a military training camp built in Chamblee, continued for almost three years. Today, much of that land is home to DeKalb Peachtree Airport.

In June of 1919, Camp Gordon was designated a permanent cantonment. The Atlanta Constitution announced, “Thousands of soldiers who were discharged have again re-enlisted in the army in order to continue in the work they like best.” This was good news for Chamblee and Atlanta, as Camp Gordon brought people and therefore additional business and money to the area.

“Germans Sign Armistice, World War Comes to End.” This was the Atlanta Constitution headline on November 11, 1918 and the good news was celebrated all over Atlanta and in the surrounding communities.

Teachers led school children in patriotic songs and then dismissed them early. Boys from Tech High School marched through town as they celebrated and cheered. Atlanta city offices were ordered closed by Mayor Asa Candler. Students of the Southern Shorthand and Business School on Whitehall Street in downtown Atlanta gathered in the street and sang “America.”

World War I training camp Camp Gordon was established in 1917 in Chamblee, Georgia. Boykin recruited women volunteers to welcome soldiers to the YMCA Hostess House and make them feel at home. She also organized entertainment activities each week for the soldiers, sometimes up to 25 activities in a week. Her volunteers were part of the Woman’s Division of the Young Man’s Christian Association and the Overseas Canteen Service.

The new search resulted in his World War I draft registration card, completed under the name of Nils Edwin Burton Berglund. He worked as a pattern maker at a shoe factory. A quick search of shoe factories in Brockton, Massachusetts around the time of WWI shows that the town was known for its shoe manufacturing companies. He was born May 15, 1896. This was slightly off from my usual guess of 1895 for the birth year of WWI soldiers.

Then I hit the jackpot on newspapers.com! I came across the small piece below about Berglund written in April of 1919. Note how the spelling of his name is once again an issue.

By the Fall of 1917, soldiers were getting settled into their new life at Camp Gordon, a World War I encampment located where DeKalb-Peachtree Airport is today. They had left their families and friends and come to live and train at this camp, which just a few months earlier had not existed.

I recently came across this postcard of a group of soldiers at Norcross Rifle Range and have been researching their names to learn who they were. They are from Company B, 325th Infantry, 82nd Division. I’ll return to this postcard later as more information is discovered, but for now I want to share what I’ve found about three of the men.

According to the December 1917 issue of The City Builder, a publication of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, a Commission on Training Camp Activities was formed for World War I encampment Camp Gordon in Chamblee, Georgia, Fort McPherson, and the aviation program at Georgia Tech. The purpose of the committee was to “organize the social life of the communities…which will mean a healthy reaction upon the camps.” (The City Builder is available online as part of the Atlanta History Center archives)

In 1917, the soldiers of Camp Gordon were having a Thanksgiving different than any other they ever experienced. Camp Gordon was a World War I encampment built earlier that year in Chamblee, Georgia. The soldiers missed their family and friends, but the camp made it a special occasion by planning a sumptuous Thanksgiving feast and printing a program with the menu.

Read my Past Tense column in the Dunwoody Crier newspaper titled Camp Gordon, Football and the Spanish Flu by following this link, Past Tense article. Here are some additional photographs from the time of World War I, Camp Gordon, Spanish flu and even some football.

This is the story of two soldiers stationed at Camp Gordon in Chamblee, Georgia during World War I. They are Julius Lombardi of New York City and Edward Mauney of Blairsville, Georgia. Thank you to their families for sharing this history.

Julius Lombardi’s granddaughter shared his journey. He first came to New York City from San Marino with his family in 1907, at the age of fourteen. Ten years later, he was drafted and sent to New York’s Camp Upton and soon after to Camp Gordon.

Men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one across the United States registered at their local draft board on June 5, 1917 and those who turned twenty-one after the first draft registered on June 5, 1918. Mabry Lunceford, a farmer from Camp Hill, Alabama turned twenty-one December 8, 1917.

George Shevenock was part of Company C, 326th Infantry, 82nd Division.  From Camp Dix he was sent to Camp Gordon and on March 15, 1918 he was promoted to Corporal.  He departed the U. S. along with the 326th on April 29, 1918 from New York headed to Southampton, England and then to LeHavre, France and eventually Toul, France on June 25, 1918.

On September 29, 1918, The Atlanta Constitution reported that 1,893 cases of Spanish Flu had been reported at Camp Gordon. 962 soldiers were sent to the camp hospital.