GEORGIA: The Military History Hidden Under Today’s Chamblee
This week, on Veterans Day 2025, angling through 5 p.m. Atlanta traffic with my aging vehicle in need of repair, I was attempting to get to the Chamblee dealership before it closed.
Credit: Jeff Hullinger
The rush hour conga line of trucks, cars, SUVs and buses made for early evening misery on a familiar stretch of road once known as Peachtree Industrial, now Peachtree Boulevard.
Over the past decade, the construction and development in Chamblee is mind-boggling, unrecognizable with a population swell of business, apartments, and motorists.
Historic Chamblee has been a center of building activity, too. Its footprint looks very different today.
Inside I-285, Dekalb County, the proximity to everything makes this real estate highly desirable. The former General Motors plant around the corner, now known as Assembly, holds a massive movie studio, mixed-use living, and is often described as a city within a city.
Chamblee’s past is mostly forgotten because its future seems bigger, brighter, more interesting. But this place once housed one of the biggest American military bases in the country, an anchor for U.S. involvement in World War I.
“It started in June of 1917, and opened to receive men by September of 1917,” said Michael Hitt, a local historian. “More than a century ago, Chamblee was all about military construction.”
Mr. Hitt pointed out areas now packed with restaurants, bars, specialty bagels, and personal wellness.
“What is now the Southbound Restaurant (5394 Peachtree Road) in Chamblee, they exited the train, and crossed the street to the general store and post office. Welcome to Camp Gordon. The camp would eventually get their own train stop. The new men are greeted by officers.”
Credit: U.S. Army Center of Military History
It’s the grounds of what will be known as PDK Airport, DeKalb Peachtree in the generations ahead.
Established in the summer of 1917, the Chamblee project was one of 16 National Army Training Camps prepared for the United States’ entry into World War I. 2,400 acres, 1,600 buildings with 47,000 troops and a cost of just under $12 million.
Before mechanization in the U.S. Army, it was run on horse power. Almost 5,000 horses and mules were taken care at 4600 Peachtree Road.
One of the world’s best golf courses beginning in 1948, Peachtree of Bobby Jones (next to the Lowe’s and the tire shop), would facilitate a series of massive stables and barns.
There were Caucasian and African American men training at Camp Gordon.
The Black troops were taken to where the CDC Building now stands on Buford Highway and Chamblee Tucker.
Credit: U.S. Army Center of Military History
The white troops entered off Clairmont Road near the current entrance of PDK Airport at Dresden.
Mr. Hitt said, “At Camp Gordon, it was a 3-1 ratio, they published in the Atlanta papers: The racial ratio would always be one black soldier to three white soldiers.”
Camp Gordon also served as a diverse training camp for worship.
Mr. Hitt added, ”A survey showed the number of religions to be phenomenal; every religion was represented.”
Camp Gordon also trained the legendary 82nd U.S. Infantry Division. The 82nd incurred 8,300 casualties in World War I. It was the home of the famed Emory Unit and the legendary Camille O’Brien — administering medical care to the U.S. military.
And the immortal Alvin York from Tennessee trained here.
Sgt. York was the most decorated soldier of the “Great War” and was the subject of a Hollywood film that won Gary Cooper an Oscar.
Says Mr. Hitt: “Sgt. York’s shooting skills caught everyone’s attention.”
As quickly as Camp Gordon was constructed in massive scale, it was ordered abandoned in 1920 and totally disposed by the fall of 1921.
Credit: U.S. Army Center of Military History
There are very few signs it ever existed — mostly hidden from view in Chamblee. On this Veterans Day 2025, it’s gone but not entirely forgotten. A major component of America’s involvement in the First World War.
The camp was on its way to being repurposed toward the next war and repurposed again toward American civil aviation.
And 108 years later, another Chamblee evolution, the ubiquitous mixed use building, now as common now as the car dealerships along Peachtree Industrial — oops, Peachtree Boulevard. That’s better.
–gpb.org
