Walter Mason Camp
Walter Mason Camp (1867-1925) was a respected editor, author, railroad expert and historical researcher.
He was born in Camptown, PA, and was educated at the Pennsylvania State College. From 1897 until his death, he was the editor of "The Railway and Engineering Review" (later renamed "Railway Review") a railroad construction and engineering journal, published in
Chicago. He was the author of the authoritative 1903 2-volume text
Notes on Track, which continued to be a standard reference in the classroom and in the field for many years. Camp married Emeline L. F. Sayles in 1898. They had no children. He died unexpectedly at Kankakee, IL.
(He should not be confused with the
Walter Camp who was famous as a selector of All-American football teams.)
Walter Mason Camp is also well-known for interviewing hundreds of both white and Indian participants in the American
Indian Wars of the second half of the nineteenth century. Although Camp wrote only a few brief papers and speeches, his interview notes are important source material, particularly for researchers dealing with the
Battle of the Little Bighorn. For many years after Camp's death, his notes were inaccessible, but most are now held in public collections, in the
Camp Collection at the
Brigham Young University Library in
Provo, UT; the
University of Colorado Library in
Boulder, CO;
Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument at
Crow Agency, MT; the
Camp Collection at
Indiana University Bloomington Library; and the
Denver Public Library in
Denver, CO. These collections also include photographs and maps. Some material remains in private hands. Much of the material (mostly that related to the Battle of the Little Bighorn) has now been published. Camp visited the Little Bighorn Battlefield many times, in the company of such notable participants as
Curley,
Peter Thompson, Gen. Edward S. Godfrey, Sgt. Daniel Knipe, Stanislaus Roy, George Herendeen, and others. He used his engineering skills to survey and map the battlefield and Custer's route to it. Camp also rediscovered a number of "lost" battle sites, including those of the Battle of Slim Buttes and the Wagon Box Fight.
*Hammer, Ken, ed.
Custer in '76: Walter Camp's Notes on the Custer Fight Norman, University of Oklahoma, 1976.
*Liddic, Bruce R and Paul Harbaugh, eds.
Custer & Company: Walter Camp's Notes on the Custer Fight. Lincoln: Bison Books, 1998.
*Camp, Walter Mason.
Camp, Custer, and the Little Bighorn : a collection of Walter Mason Camp's research papers. ed. by Richard G. Hardorff. El Segundo, CA : Upton and Sons, 1997.
*
Walter Mason Camp Online Photograph Collection, The Walter Mason Camp digital collection includes 86 photographic images, centering on Camp's interest in the Indian Wars of North America occurring between1865 and 1890.
