02/07/2021
Shared from our friends at North Stelton Volunteer Fire Company! Some great history and pictures of the area in and around Edison and Piscataway! Enjoy!
New & Rare Photos.... Missing History of Pisc.1930s - 40’s Stelton’s Camp Kilmer History...
Once upon a time,…
When the Township of Piscataway / Edison were still basically farmlands… when parts of Stelton Road were primarily dirt and featured a tiny little RR Station- A military camp was built by the US Gov’t. Initially, Troops were quartered at Camp Kilmer which featured last minute military maneuvers in prep for transport to the European theater of Operations in World War II. Eventually, it became the largest US Military Debarkation Center processing troops heading overseas &/or returning from World War II. History will record that It touched and in total processed well over 2.5 million men and soldiers while the camp was open.
… While men were stationed at Camp Kilmer- It served several functions and was split into several sections. There was a section where troops were trained for general military maneuvers, a section where troops experienced light military organization drilling then transportation maneuvers in preparation for Britain. A section was created for storing volumes of Military Supplies for both the Soldiers and for weaponry. Also soldiers were allowed to receive and send personal effects home, received both dental & medical services such as: physicals and provided all needed medical injections, Every thing that a soldier needed was provided and eventually loaded onto the Stelton RR Station & then sent to different sections of New York City Harbor where Military Transport Ships were waiting for travel to Britain and ultimately the European Theater of Operations.
… The site was looked at by the War Department in 1938 & '39 and concluded that the Stelton RR Station and surrounding Stelton farm properties with massive farm acreage was the best site to serve the New York Port Of Embarkation with a significant access to a RR Station to develop. The War Department officially selected and annexed the site in 1941. Quickly the Civil Engineers modified and improved the RR Station to support large volume of troops. In total, the facility covered over 1,500 acres and consisted of 1,120 buildings, including rows of wooden barracks, seven chapels, five theaters, nine post exchanges, a gym, three libraries, four telephone centers, a post office, a 1,000-bed hospital, 28 miles of roadway, and about 11 railheads that fed into the main line. The station also had access to a four-track mainline (now the Amtrak NEC) allowed movements into the large train loading yards without interference with mainline traffic. The Army Corp of Engineers quickly began construction of Military Offices near Stelton Road and then acre by acre began building barracks. The RR station & camp also served as the Port Reading branch of the Reading Railroad & the Amboy branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. The camp was also fully operational during the Korean War and in 1956 it served as an initial place for housing for refugees from the 1956 Hungarian Revolution until June 1957. In March 1958, Camp Kilmer became HQ’s for the U.S. Army II Corps, the controlling HQ’s for United States Army Reserve units across the northeast. Camp Kilmer also housed a maintenance and repair facility supporting the Nike/Hercules missile sites in the greater New York metropolitan area. This facility included large, armored rooms with heavy blast doors where missile engines and conventional warheads were stored and maintained.
