Camp Evans History

• Pre-Marconi Period 1912
• Marconi Period 1912-1925
• World War II Radar Laboratory
• Army Research Period 1946 - 1998
• Army Projects at Camp Evans

Thanks to the Marconi Park Complex Advisory Committee for approving InfoAge as an educational re-use of Camp Evans.

December 1, 1999 the State of New Jersey - Historic Preservation review board heard our application to list Camp Evans on the National Registor of Historic Places.  They approved our application and will forward it to the federal level. The link below has the text of that application and selected links to photos and references.  The page represents hundreds of hours of research and work by many volunteers

    Documents covering the entire site history.

NRHP Application Update.  37 acres of Camp Evans is now a state and national historic district.  Our National Register of Historic Places application was approved by the NJ state historic review board on March 20, 2000 and the Keeper of the National Register on March 26, 2002.

Researching a topic relating to Camp Evans?  This page lists primary and secondary sources by year published.  It contants references to books, maps, drawings, newspaper articles etc. that relate to Camp Evans history.

A step in the BRAC process was to determine if the BRAC site had any historical value.  In 1996 Geo-Marine, Inc. prepared under contract the
"EVALUATION OF SELECTED CULTURAL RESOURCES AT FORT MONMOUTH, NEW JERSEY: CONTEXT FOR COLD WAR ERA, REVISION OF HISTORIC PROPERTIES DOCUMENTATION, AND SURVEY OF EVANS AREA AND SECTIONS OF CAMP CHARLES WOOD".  Some title...the short form is 'Cultural Resources Report - 1996'.  Researchers Mary Beth Reed and Mark Swanson of New South Associates did excellent research into the history of  Camp Evans.  We have most of it here on our web site to assist persons researching topics in the history of technology.
 

Camp Evans...approximately 1970.  Birds eye view of the heart of the historic district.  Starting at the bottom center you see the roof of the Marconi cottage 9002, as you move up you come to the Marconi hotel roof (9001), the the first 'H'-building (9010/9011), then finally the second 'H'-building (9036/9037).

A picture is worth a thousand words - The National Archives has many of photos from Camp Evans, we have a dozen or more here for you to view.

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Pre-Marconi Period 1912

• This link is to the excellent work of Mark Swanson, complete with all pre-Marconi land owners.

Marconi Period 1912-1925

• 1912 Marconigraph Article describing Marconi's vision of the first World-wide wireless ether network. Yes,Camp Evans is a part.
• 1913 Story about Marconi's Belmar and New Brunswick Station construction
• In 1914 Mr. Edward Henderson rode his horse wagon from his Glendola farm and took excellent photos of the Belmar Station.  Check these out!
• In 1914-1925 timeframe  postcards were published of the Marconi Station and The King's College in 1938.
• 1914 Story about Marconi's Belmar Station with a little history
• Take a look at a 1914 eleven page photo story about Marconi's Belmar Station - lots of interior shots - 400K of photos (slow-load)
• In 1914 David Sarnoff, Edwin Armstrong, and others tested the famous circuit here...
• Want a great job with a future?  Become a wireless operator at a Marconi High-Powered station. -- "The Wireless Operator's Future"
•  From 1917 to 1919 Camp Evans was taken over and run by the Navy...Some of the most important messages of WWI were dispatched via Belmar station. Read the details from Dr. A. Hoyt Taylors book.  (Dr. Taylor would later become the father of Navy radar)
• Belmar and New Brunswick Marconi stations are play a part WWI Armistice negotiations by wireless. And, the start of radio propaganda!
• Roy Weagant works for Marconi at the Belmar station.
• Famous General Electric engineer Dr. Ernst Alexanderson works at Belmar Station for Marconi, Navy and RCA.
• Albert Einstein looks into radio and visits the New Brunswick station.
• Take a look at eight photos of Belmar station when RCA owned it in 1922
• A personal account of life at the station in the 1920's.  THE BELMAR DAYS  "Belmar! It is a sweet and euphonious name.  A  pile of money went up the flue there, technical reputations were lost and gained, there were heartbreaks private and corporate, and now there is silence..."
• From 1936 to spring 1941 Camp Evans was a college campus... Rev. Percey Crawford's The King's College

World War II Radar Laboratory

 
• 50 minutes before W. W. II began a radar unit designed by the engineers of Camp Evans, deployed in Hawaii, detected the enemy planes attacking Pearl Harbor
• Camp Evans radar protects the Panama Canal from enemy attack.  An attack on the Canal locks could hurt our efforts to get supplies and troops to the Pacific threatre.  Army mobile radar, the SCR-268 was deployed on the sea.
• The shops of Camp Evans could make anything...and in secret.  They had to, allied and American armed forces depended upon the Signal Corps for equipment that would be one step ahead of the enemy.  At camp Evans they could design, develop, test, production engineer and work with industry to manufacture advanced communications and radar systems.

SECRET MONTHLY PROGRESS REPORT FOR AUGUST 1943 (DECLASSIFIED) See the list of 1943 secret radar projects and list of Camp Evans Officers....

• Dymaxion Deployment Units designed by Buckminister Fuller used at Camp Evans.
• Dataplate from SCR-270 radar receiver...saved by Ray Chase
• W.W.II Radar Sets SCR-268, SCR-270, SCR-271 built at Camp Evans help win the war.
• The Dr. Zahl article - In Case You Have Forgotten...
• Updated Dr. Harold Zahl Stories.

Mr. Marchetti (currently age 91) is a Camp Evans SUPER-HERO.
• Mr. Marchetti...In Building 20 at Camp Evans - they delivered...
• THE SECRET TUBE THAT CHANGED THE WAR from Camp Evans...of course!!  March 1964 Popular Electronics...
• A trip to the National Archives located primary documentation of a number of interesting Camp Evans WWII secret projects.  One called 'Project Wolf' - was developed and tested at Camp Evans to kill Japanese soldiers hidden in island caves.  The problem was these soldiers, deep in caves, would survive aerial bombing, granades and flame throwers.  They would later emerge and kill U.S. Marines.  Radio controlled explosives were delivered into the caves... Instant bacon bits!!!  A page will appear here soon...
• Camp Evans radar engineers under direction of E. King Stodola develop and test special anti-Kamikaze radar for the planned invasion of mainland Japan.
• Camp Evans is an African-American History site - Read the oral histories of Camp Evans staff who did their part to win WWII for freedom and democracy, even though they knew they would not be able to enjoy the full fruits of victory.
• Lt. Col. Paul E. Watson was the second of the five WWII commanding officiers at Camp Evans.  Sadly, he died in 1943 in the Marconi Hotel.  Watson road was named in his honor.  See all five officers super-imposed on a June 1945 aerial photo of Camp Evans.
• August 15, 1945 WWII ends!!!!!  Washington discloses the secret of radar and describes it as....
U.S. Gives Radar Secrets, ‘Major Reason’ of  Victory It is an excellent overview of the major roll  radar played in the Allied victory.  It also predicts the future of electronics.  As the Signal Corps radar laboratory Camp Evans played a fundamental roll in the "story of victory in a laboratory race against the enemy".
• Tubie wins WWII!!   Who is tubie?  The unsung hero of WWII.  Every piece of electronic equipment used in WWII was designed with electronic tubes.  Camp Evans was the home of the Signal Corps tube design and test laboratory.
• Camp Evans Group Photos... It took the efforts of thousands of men and women of all races to out-wit the Nazi and Japanese radar engineers.  Take a look at American heroes who fought and defeated the Axis with electronic creativity and ingenuity at the Signal Corps Radar Laboratory - Camp Evans.

Army Research Period 1946 - 1998

• After the end of WWII German radar scientists were relocated and employed at Camp Evans as a part of Operation Paperclip...details soon.
• 1949 Asbury Park Press article which summarizes Camp history from Marconi to 1949  One interesting statement is the proximity fuse was developed at Camp Evans...
• Project Diana Opens the Space Age at Camp Evans...Project Diana photo gallery.
• JCP&L Advertising based on Project Diana
• Have you ever heard of Diaperville?  While important top-secret projects were being researched at Camp Evans, families were also creating memories outside the fence.
• Why Camp Evans was called the Army's "House of Magic"
• In 1953 Senator Joe McCarthy's Communist Witch Hunt found its way to Camp Evans.  On October 20, 1953 the Senator, his lawyer Roy Cohn and other visited Evans to get the goods on the spies...
• Sputnik & Camp Evans
• A SIGNAL CORPS SPACE ODYSSEY Before NASA was created the Signal Corps and Camp Evans played a part in the exploration of space...read Dr. Hans Ziegler's 1981 account of early satellite development.  Dr. Ziegler was responsible for the first application of solar cells as a power source for satellites.  Brig. Gen. H. Mc D Brown followed with SCORE and beyond
• Camp Evans and the development of silicon transistors
• Huge 'turntable' designed here for research
• Anyone ever tell you about the nuclear laboratory at Camp Evans...Building 9401 was the Army Dosimetry Laboratory.
• The Army Photo-Optics Laboratory was established at Camp Evans in 1963.  A 1969 AFCEA article describes important intelligence equipment developed at Camp Evans and fielded in Vietnam.

Army Projects at Camp Evans

• Tracking Pioneer-V from the Diana site
• Joint Stars <- This system was rushed into use during Desert Storm.  It is in use in war on terrorism today!
• Rembass
• FireFinder
• Learn how FIREFINDER performed in Desert Storm...keeping the Camp Evans tradition of radar location of enemy fire at Evans until 1997.
• Camp Evans was the center of a TOP SECRET unit (9677th) which had equipment at Camp Evans and in friendly countries to detect atomic test blasts...we are collecting information to create a page.  We have been told this was the secret project which Senator Joe McCarthy insisted his staff be allowed to see and was refused entrance to building 9400.  They detected the first Chinese test and others.
• Star Wars - A project called 'Pulse Power' had a unit in an old WWII radar shelter at Camp Evans during President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (aka Star Wars).  Using very high voltage and high amperage pulses of power... we believe they were trying to develop the technology to disrupt Soviet satellites in orbit.  We are not sure, but we are sure the explosions and failures of transformers during testing caused PCB contamination.  The building had to be completely removed including tons of soil.

Was it a missile silo?  No, it was a turntable......a merry go round for radar scientists.  A $500,000 toy for boys.  Ph.D. required to play

Updated September 1, 2002 - created August 15, 2000  Copyright©  Infoage 1998-2002 InfoAge. All rights reserved.