Camp Sutton was organized as a training site for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and opened as a temporary ?tent? camp in the spring of 1942. The base covered 2,296 acres about three miles east of Monroe in Union County. Located on U.S. Highway 74, Sutton was naturally divided into two halves by Richardson?s Creek, and a railroad line also ran through the camp. The troop quarters were connected by dirt roads to outlying tactical areas of the base. The white and African American units stationed at Sutton were segregated, and racial tensions often ran high. The installation was named in honor of Frank H. Sutton, a Monroe native who was killed over Libya in 1941 while serving as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
