Long before Camp Adair covered the countryside north of Corvallis, there was a small community known as Wells, Oregon. Located in northern Benton County near what is today the center of the E.E. Wilson Wildlife Area, Wells was a rural farming and transportation community surrounded by farms, fields, timber, and the natural landscape of the Willamette Valley.
The community developed during the nineteenth century as settlers established farms in the area. By the late 1800s and early twentieth century, Wells had become more than a collection of farms. It had the characteristics of a small rural town, with homes, farms, businesses, a school, church, post office, blacksmith shop, railroad facilities, and other services that supported the surrounding agricultural community.
A Farming Community
Life in Wells was closely connected to agriculture. Families farmed the fertile Willamette Valley soil, raising crops and livestock while depending on nearby roads and the railroad to move their products to market.
The arrival of the railroad was particularly important. The railroad provided Wells with a connection to the larger communities of the Willamette Valley and helped establish the area as a local center for agricultural shipping and commerce. Oregon historical records note that Wells appears to have been platted in connection with the establishment of the railroad.
The railroad also brought another name to the community. When the Southern Pacific's electric interurban railroad—the famous Red Electric—came through the area, the station and community became known as Wellsdale, partly to distinguish it from another Wells elsewhere in the railroad system.
For the people who lived there, however, this was home. Generations of families established farms, raised children, attended school, worked local businesses, and built their lives around the community.
The Town of Wells
Wells was never a large town by Oregon standards, but it was an important local community.
The town included a school, church, store, post office, blacksmith shop, railroad depot, warehouse, and homes.
The school was especially important to the community. Children from surrounding farms attended school in Wells, making the town a social as well as economic center.
The railroad depot provided another gathering point. Farmers could ship agricultural products, residents could receive goods and mail, and people could travel to neighboring communities.
The town was surrounded by a much larger rural population. Consequently, the history of Wells is not just the history of the buildings located around the railroad. It is also the history of the farms, families, roads, schools, churches, and rural communities that surrounded it.
The Coming of War
By the early 1940s, the world was changing rapidly.
Even before the United States entered World War II, the U.S. Army was searching for a large location where troops could be trained for overseas combat. The Army wanted a site with large areas of relatively open ground, access to transportation, adequate water, and terrain suitable for military training.
The Willamette Valley north of Corvallis proved to be an ideal location.
In 1941, the War Department selected the area centered around Wells for a massive new military training installation. The proposed camp would require tens of thousands of acres and would fundamentally change the landscape.
For the people of Wells, the news meant that their community was going to disappear.
Wells Gives Way to Camp Adair
Following the United States' entry into World War II in December 1941, construction plans moved with extraordinary speed.
The federal government acquired the land, and residents were required to leave their homes and farms. The town of Wells, including its school and other community buildings, was cleared to make way for the new military installation. Farms surrounding the town were also acquired. Historical accounts describe hundreds of families being displaced as the Army assembled the enormous tract of land needed for Camp Adair.
Even cemeteries within the proposed military reservation had to be relocated.
What had taken generations to build was dismantled in a matter of months.
Houses disappeared. Barns were torn down. Farms were abandoned. Roads and railroad routes were changed. The school closed. The town itself was demolished.
In its place came one of the largest construction projects Oregon had ever seen.
Camp Adair Rises
In 1942, the landscape surrounding Wells was transformed into Camp Adair.
Within approximately six months, the Army constructed an enormous military cantonment containing more than 1,800 buildings, including barracks, mess halls, warehouses, hospitals, theaters, chapels, administrative buildings, service facilities, and other structures needed to support tens of thousands of soldiers.
The former town of Wells was now buried beneath a military city.
The transformation was so dramatic that Camp Adair eventually became one of Oregon's largest population centers. At its peak, roughly 30,000 to 45,000 soldiers and civilian employees could be living and working at the installation, making it Oregon's second-largest city during World War II.
But underneath that enormous military installation was the older landscape of Wells.
The roads, fields, property boundaries, railroad routes, farms, and remnants of the former community did not simply cease to exist because the Army built over them. In many places, traces of the earlier community remained beneath the wartime construction.
Remembering Wells
The story of Wells is an important part of the history of Camp Adair.
When people visit the former Camp Adair area today, it can be easy to see only the remains of the military installation—concrete foundations, roads, drainage systems, and other traces of the World War II camp.
But before those foundations were poured, there were homes.
Before there were barracks, there were farms.
Before soldiers marched across the fields, children went to school there.
Before Camp Adair became a wartime city, Wells was a community.
Today, much of the former Wells area lies within the E.E. Wilson Wildlife Area, which was established after the war on part of the former Camp Adair cantonment. ODFW recognizes the area as having served as the site of the town of Wells before becoming Camp Adair.
The physical town is gone, but its history has not disappeared.
The story of Wells helps us understand what Camp Adair replaced, and what the people of northern Benton County gave up so that thousands of American soldiers could train for World War II.
Camp Adair was built in the place where Wells once stood. To understand Camp Adair, we must first remember Wells. I can also turn this into a , including the much more detailed Wells history, early settlers, railroad, businesses, Wells School, church, post office, individual families, and where the town stood in relation to today's E.E. Wilson Wildlife Area