When I return to visit Louisiana, I like to make the time to stop in at Camp Claiborne, revisit the old stomping grounds. Over the years, it has changed. A lot.
At some point, the state or military or some kind of authorities swept in. They said it was hazardous, that there was unexploded ordinance of all things.
The main area we used to visit, the cylinders and tavern and grid, have been changed most drastically.
The trail to get to the grid and buildings isn’t there anymore. Instead, though you can park at the same spot, the entrance is farther down the road. It’s a big opening to an enormous clearing. That clearing was once the grid, but they filled the entire thing in. Now, it’s just muddy grass.
I don’t think that all that much is different once you’re inside of the Tavern or the Battle Arena buildings—those are still accessible, though the stairs to the tavern basement have been sealed up, and the larger of the holes in the floor patched—but the cylinders have changed. Part of the wall of each of them has been smashed down, so now they are dry, empty, and you can walk in them.
The acoustics are great for singing.
The initiation building, though, is no longer open. They welded large steel plates over the door opening, over the windows, sealing it up. As if that wasn’t enough, they also put a tall chain link fence, topped with barbed wire, around it.
That fence is damaged now, though. The wire mesh bulges outwards in multiple places, as though there was a hard, fast impact from something large. And based on the direction… it almost looks like it was something moving from inside the enclosure, trying to get out.
In the back, a patch of fence is missing–it’s the bottom half, torn off from the top and discarded. It doesn’t have the little bends or scuffs from a one-at-a-time wire snip. It looks like it was ripped apart.
The last time I went out there with friends, we walked along the edge of the fence and found there’s no need any longer to duck under the remaining chain link—NOT that you should. Near the back, the fence’s gate had been opened.
Again, the danger triggering these changes was supposed to have been unexploded ordinance, but everywhere in the camp we’ve found changes have been our favorite spots. With the way we poked and prodded and literally dug into the ground, I have trouble believing that there really was unexploded ordinances in those spots.
I’ve tried to dig into reports of murders, crimes, and dumped bodies out at the abandoned base. I haven’t found much of anything on those notes—curiously, though, what I have found are old newspaper articles archived online, where high ranking law enforcement officials go on record, under their own names, to confirm cultist and occult activity out there in the camp. These reports come from the late 80s, long before my time.
In the years since my adventures, the closest towns have encroached closer and closer to the camp. Some of the roads have been unblocked, or even built, to connect the spreading civilization to the camp’s main highway. More sports people are out there each year, riding four-wheelers and mountain bikes, doing whatever it is people do in public national forests.
I still have yet to encounter other people at my parts of the camp when I return there, however.
As for my returns to the camp, these trips—sadly—tend to be short, daylight excursions. I have to be a responsible adult now, not an invincible kid. (And my friends, now adults, are less likely to indulge my impulsive curiosity.)
After all—and they know this about me way too well—I can’t help but wonder what would happen if we took the time to go digging for Camp Claiborne’s secrets again.
And if we find nothing? In the event that the camp has changed too radically, that all of the magic truly is gone?
Well, back when I was a teen, word on the street was always that another abandoned Louisiana Maneuvers military base, Camp Livingston, was so messed up and haunted that it made Camp Claiborne look like a kindergarten. I wonder what’s out there.
And if you do go out to Camp Claiborne after my stories, following my directions to find my favorite spots, and if you do encounter something strange, inexplicable, wrong… tell it I say hello.
After all, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it.
Up Next:
x. a disclaimer
