The Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center was established this week back in 1917. Located on 200 square miles in portions of Perry and Forrest Counties, it is the largest state-owned and operated field-training center in the United States.
The first troops to utilize the new camp were 6,000 National Guardsmen from Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia, mobilizing for World War I. Camp Shelby has been in almost continuously since then as a training site for National Guardsmen and Reservists, and also for active components of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force.
Camp Shelby is also home to an Armed Forces Museum, which serves as the military history museum for the State of Mississippi. The museum has over 17,000 artifacts on display.
For more interesting facts about Mississippi's 200-year history, watch a new interstitial each week of 2017 with Mississippi: A Thread Through Time on MPB TV.
