Significance of the Montford Point Camp No. 1 Historic District

    The Montford Point Camp No. 1 Historic District helps document the training of all African-American Marines during World War II.  Completed in mid-August 1942 following the specifications for battalion units, Montford Point Camp No. 1 functioned as the principal boot camp training facility for the Marines’ first African-American recruits.  The camp originally featured six enlisted washrooms, a mess hall, an administration building, a dispensary, a recreation building, a post exchange, two warehouses, and a heating plant, all of frame construction, that surrounded 108 portable homosote huts.  The institution of the draft created a large influx of recruits, and the Montford Point camp became the Recruit Depot for mustering African-American troops, which required substantial enlargement of the camp in terms of organization and physical plant.  New buildings constructed of tile block with stucco veneers were built along the west side of Montford Landing Road by mid-1943, which included the Marines’ typical regimental post buildings found throughout Camp Lejeune, including a larger administration building, an infirmary, a hostess house, a brig, a post theater, classroom buildings, and gun sheds.  Late in 1943 a training pool was also erected at Montford Point in order to provide swimming training for African-American recruits.   

    Reflecting these significant themes providing African-American Marines with the skills and instruction necessary for conducting war, the Montford Point Camp No. 1 Historic District is eligible for the National Register as a “Training Unit” within the historic context “The Black Marine Training Experience, Montford Point.”  Built between 1942 and 1943 in order to house and provide the Marines’ first African-American enlistees with boot camp training, the Montford Point Camp No. 1 Historic District meets National Register significance criteria for its association with Camp Lejeune’s principal mission, the training of personnel, and for its association with the training of the first African-American Marines.  As a result of Camp No. 1’s establishment as the Montford Point Recruit Depot, a full range of regimental post administrative and support buildings was erected.  Reflecting and reinforcing the hierarchical organizational structure of personnel into clearly defined military groups, the Montford Point Camp No. 1 Historic District is also significant as a distinctive built environment reflecting and reinforcing military organization and hierarchy.