Memorial Park & Camp Logan: Houston's WWI Chapter

The green sweep of Memorial Park — bigger than Central Park, a beloved run and trail ground for the whole city — hides a serious history under its pines. During World War I the U.S. Army built a vast training camp here called Camp Logan, where tens of thousands of soldiers prepared for the trenches of France. The camp is also remembered for a grave episode in August 1917, when Black soldiers of the 24th Infantry, worn down by Houston's Jim Crow laws and harassment by police, took up arms in a night of violence that ended with deaths and, afterward, deeply unjust military trials and executions. When the camp closed after the war, the land became a park named in tribute to the soldiers who served. This drive circles the park and its edges, telling the honest story of the ground beneath the joggers and picnic blankets — the training fields, the tragedy of 1917, and the memorial that followed.