Camp
Wadsworth had a
tremendous impact
on life in the city of Spartanburg. Soldiers frequently made their way into the
city whenever they could. This was no
small feat, considering the transportation difficulties that the men
stationed
at Camp Wadsworth
faced. The Vanderbilt
Road remained notoriously dangerous
throughout the
camp's existence. Dr. Charles E.
Jefferson, who visited Camp Wadsworth
in 1917, was as shocked by the road conditions as he was the weather. In an articled titled "A Week In
Spartanburg," he related that "The road from the city to the camp is
worthy of mention. Indeed there are
several roads, all of them equally bad. The
one which seemed the worst was always the one
which I took the
last. Somebody told me about these roads
before I had been in town an hour. I was
tempted to buy a ticket at once for New York. At the breakfast table Sunday morning, a man
from North Carolina, not
knowing
I was to conduct a communion service in the camp that morning, related
a tale which
made my hair stand up. He explained that
the road was quite convex, and very slippery, and that I would see the
wrecks
of ruined automobiles all along the way." A
good road from Camp Wadsworth
to Spartanburg was not
fully
completed until the National Highway
opened on October 15, 1918. Soldiers trying to reach the city by public
car frequently claimed that they were gouged. Some
units avoided the public car operators all
together by purchasing
their own vehicles. Another possible way
to reach Spartanburg was
the
Piedmont & Northern electric railway. The
P&N laid spur tracks into Camp
Wadsworth, but
offered notoriously
bad service. Soldiers were baffled by Spartanburg's
inability to improve the transportation situation.
In a letter to the editor of the Spartanburg
Herald newspaper, one
disgruntled soldier complained "It's a good day's work to get to and
from
town. Some of the men in camp have
pockets lined with money and they are anxious to spend this with the
Spartanburg dealers and the theatres but rather than brave the perils
of the
Snake road, pay 35 cents jitney fare to points beyond the Hostess House
or
stall around for a couple hours waiting for the P. & N. to decide
it's
about time to run another train to and from Camp Wadsworth, they stay
in camp,
anxiously awaiting the day when they will be sent to another camp, near
another
city where the Chamber of Commerce is active, where the newspapers are
fighting
for the best interests of he community and where the merchants are
awake to the
possibilities of increasing their patronage and profits.
The men want to go to another town whose
civic pride would not allow such conditions to prevail… As it is now,
the
soldiers are forced to believe that the people of Spartanburg do not
want them
to visit their city, to patronize their restaurants and stores and
theatres and
therefore they content themselves at camp, amusing themselves as best
they may,
longing for the orders that will sent them away from the Snake road and
the P.
& N. electric line." Many men
ultimately chose to avoid both the public cars and the P&N by
simply
walking the three and a half miles to town.
Despite
the transportation problems, Spartanburg
was often filled with khaki clad soldiers. Of
Spartanburg,
Dr. Charles
Jefferson wrote "It is the most upset city in America,
at least so far as my knowledge goes. It
has been upset by Camp Wadsworth,
a new city of 35,000
inhabitants
only four miles away. This new
city overflows in the old city.
Twice a week there is a genuine inundation. I arrived on Saturday, and at first I was not
certain whether I was in the camp or in the city. Soldiers
were everywhere. The streets were full. The hotels crowded. The
stores were overflowing." New York
National Guardsmen found Spartanburg
quite different from the northern cities that they were accustomed to. In a letter home, Sergeant Kenneth Gow wrote
"Spartanburg is a typical
Southern city. It seems very
old-fashioned to us. The merchants are
very obliging, and evidently are making a sincere effort to give the
troops a
square deal. The people are sociable,
and very much inclined to take things easy. If
you try to hurry them, you are worse off than
ever." Sergeant Gow found Spartanburg's
businessmen wholly unprepared for the demands created by Camp
Wadsworth. He observed "If an enterprising merchant
would open a store here, he would make his fortune.
The storekeepers in the town have not the
slightest idea of what they ought to carry. At
the furniture store where I bought my table and
chair I also tried to
get two canvas folding-chairs for Lt. Wilson. The
owner said that he had ordered a big shipment of
them, and that he
expected that they would arrive at some indeterminate date in the
future. I asked him how many he had
ordered, and he
informed me that his order called for a hundred. Just
imagine! And he thought that he was
plunging in very deeply. He could sell a
thousand of them right
now. I told him to order five thousand,
and went so far as to say that the M. G. Co. would guarantee the
sale…" Increased demand caused
prices to rise rapidly in Spartanburg. Military vehicles began to create traffic
jams and speeding problems. Military
Police maintained a constant presence in the city.
The MPs dealt with everything from directing
traffic to raiding houses of ill repute.
Rock Creek
Park
and the Cleveland Hotel became important social centers for off duty
soldiers. Dances were frequently being
organized, and regimental bands from Camp
Wadsworth
frequently gave
performances at public events. Intermingling
between soldiers and local girls
resulted in a fair number
of marriages. Many soldiers were
accompanied to Spartanburg
by their
families. A small village for officers'
families was rapidly erected on the western side of Camp
Wadsworth. More affluent families simply rented houses
and hotel rooms. This resulted in a
definite housing shortage in Spartanburg.
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