Our Land - Our Heritage

From 1894 to 1942, families settled and farmed this land until in 1942 the War Assets Administration purchased or acquired through adverse possession 3,072 acres to establish the Tyler Air Force Replacement Training Center. Landowners were paid as little as $25 per acre even though replacement land was selling for much higher prices, and when they sought a fairer price and the return of their land after the war, the courts denied their appeals. After the government changed the scope of its original plans, the land became the heart of Camp Fannin, U.S. Army Infantry Replacement Training Center, where more than 250,000 soldiers were trained from May 1943 to December 1945 before the camp was deactivated in 1946. In 1948 the War Assets Administration declared the purchased land a disposable war asset and deeded 2,369 acres, including the 1,000-bed Camp Fannin Station Hospital, to the State of Texas. The hospital reopened in 1949 as the East Texas Tuberculosis Sanatorium, and in 1958 the state returned 1,691 acres to the U.S. government while retaining 614 acres for the East Texas Tuberculosis Hospital. The surplus land was auctioned in 1959 and bought by Tyler businessmen and the Owen Development Company, which established the community of Owentown. In 1977 the Texas Legislature transferred the East Texas Chest Hospital to The University of Texas System, which renamed it The University of Texas Health Center at Tyler. Since World War II, the families who lost their land and part of their heritage have sought acknowledgment of their sacrifice, including descendants of William P. and Mary Walsh and other landowners whose farms, school district, church, and company lands lay within this area.

Tyler, Texas · United States