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Research dossier · Places & Architecture

Camp Thomas A. Scott

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2025
Entity authorityQ30323810 ↗
Source-derived summary

Camp Thomas A. Scott, located in Fort Wayne, Indiana, was a Railway Operating Battalion training center for the Pennsylvania Railroad from 1942 to 1944 and a prisoner of war camp during World War II. It was named for Thomas A. Scott, who served as the fourth president of the Pennsylvania Railroad from 1874 to 1880. As the United States Assistant Secretary of War in 1861, Scott was instrumental in using railroads for military purposes during the American Civil War.

Pennsylvania Railroad Training Center

Camp Scott was built in August 1942 as a training camp for U.S. Army Railway Operating Battalions. This made sense because Fort Wayne was a major hub for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and Camp Scott was constructed adjacent to Pennsylvania Railroad lines. The 717th, the 730th, and the 750th Railway Operating Battalions were all trained on Pennsylvania Railroad lines in Fort Wayne. The last battalion was deployed from Camp Scott in mid-1944.

Prisoner of war camp

Camp Scott was a branch camp of Camp Perry in Ohio. Camp Scott housed approximately 600 prisoners of war. Most of these prisoners were German and had served in the Afrika Korps, although some were Italians captured at the Battle of Anzio and the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy. Like the rest of the United States, Fort Wayne suffered labor shortages due to wartime enlistment, and prisoners from Camp Scott were put to work in Fort Wayne and surrounding areas of Allen County, Indiana.

Editorial summary

“Camp Thomas A. Scott” enters the record as fort Wayne, Indiana. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Camp, Thomas and Scott can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA strong orientation record where physical form, institutional use and historical geography need to be read together. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1942, 1944, 1874, 1880—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Camp, Thomas and Scott.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Camp Thomas A. Scott” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Camp, Thomas and Scott provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q30323810. Authority coordinates are 41.057, -85.097. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1942, 1944, 1874 and 1880.

Critical limits

Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Camp Thomas A. Scott”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Camp Thomas A. Scott primary sources, Camp Thomas A. Scott archive and Camp research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Camp Thomas A. Scott”?
  2. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
  3. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Camp Thomas A. Scott” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.