Fort George G. Meade: The First 100 Years

12 THE FIRST 100 YEARS
orders from Washington, sprawling to as much as three
times the size of the original plan.
Total construction cost $18 million with a capacity to
equip, train, house and feed up to 53,800 men.
The 79th Infantry Division was the first organization
formed at Camp Meade and its commander, Maj. Gen.
Joseph Kuhn, became the first Commander of the camp.
Later, the 11th Division was formed here, along
with the 92nd Division which was one of only two
African-American divisions to participate in the war. In
addition, the Hello Girls were trained here. Bilingual in
French and English, these women, recruited from the
telephone service, played a vital role to ensure battlefield
communications were conducted over trunk lines.
In addition to men and women, a large Remount Depot,
located near what is now Tipton Airfield, sent as many
as 22,000 horses and mules to France. The animals were
trained, fed, quartered and treated with the same attention
to detail as their human counterparts. They were given
medical checkups and shots and were transported to the
Port of Baltimore on the same troop trains as the soldiers.
At the port, horses, mules, men and women traveled to
France.
In all 103,000 men and women trained at Camp Meade
during the war with another 96,000 mustering out of
service from Meade at war’s end.
The welcomed end of the war marked only the
beginning of Fort Meade’s 100 year-long transformative
journey.
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(Pg. 10) In just months, 1,200 wooden structures
were built on the new camp at a cost of $18M, with a
capacity to equip, train, house and feed 53,800 men.
(Right) The first phase of construction consisted of 1,200
wooden structures to accomodate some of the 103,000 men
and women who trained at Camp Meade for WWI.