Camp Evans Historic District

Belmar Receiving Station

The Belmar Receiving Station was established near the Belmar community together with a separate transatlantic transmitting facility at New Brunswick, New Jersey, by the American Marconi Company. The Belmar station included "a mile-long bronze-wire receiving antenna strung on six 400 foot tall masts with three 150 foot balancing towers along the Shark River. Outgoing Morse-code messages were sent via a telegraph land-line from the Belmar Station to the transmitter." The receiving site also had a telegraph land-line to a New York office.

Original buildings (40.1859°N 74.0594°W / 40.1859; -74.0594) were built by the J.G. White Engineering Corp. between 1912 and 1914 as part of Guglielmo Marconi's "wireless girdle" around the Earth. In one of the buildings being constructed for the Belmar station, the regenerative circuit was demonstrated on January 31/February 1, 1914.

In April 1917, the Belmar station was acquired as part of the Navy's World War I "Trans-Atlantic Communication System" and after the November 1918 Armistice with Germany, Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America regained the Belmar station, which Radio Corporation of America owned from October 1919 until 1924.

Klan

The Ku Klux Klan owned the site from 1925 to 1935.

The Young People's Association for the Propagation of the Gospel purchased the Belmar station in 1936, and The King's College opened in September 1938—when it was denied accreditation it relocated (currently is in the Empire State Building.)

The Signal Corps Radar Laboratory (SCRL) of Fort Hancock (formerly "Field Laboratory No. 3") in the late 1930s used "a field set-up at" the Belmar station to compare US radars with the British CH-CHL Radars. (additional testing of hardware was "often done" at the nearby Twin Lights radar station, e.g., a trial radar network in 1939.)

Evans Signal Laboratory

In 1941 the Belmar radio "site was renamed the Evans Signal Laboratory" after Wall Township purchased "the original Marconi buildings and the surrounding 93 acres" for the Army to move the SCRL. Initial construction "quickly built more than two dozen buildings and structures on the open land to the south and west of the Marconi buildings", including 2 boiler houses, 4 long rectangular one-story buildings, and "two groups of radio antenna shelters". Two models of the SCR-271 radar "were located near the intersection of Monmouth Boulevard and Watson Road" (the model D had a sign for the SCRL Installation and Maintenance School).

Camp Evans

Camp Evans was designated by "War Department General Order, 17 February 1942"; the Camp Evans Signal Laboratory was named on March 31, 1942 (the date of the camp's dedication); and in December 1942, the War Department directed the Signal Corps General Development Laboratories and the Camp Evans Signal Lab to combine into the Signal Corps Ground Service (SCGS) with headquarters at Bradley Beach, New Jersey (Hotel Grossman). The Camp Evans lab used "VT-158 tube[s] to adapt SCR-268s for" picket ships, modified the SCR-268 into the SCR-602 which detected Japanese kamikazes (producing 12 renumbered AN/TPQ-3 developmental models) and on the SCR-584 tracking radar, did preliminary testing in December 1941 and added identification friend or foe. The lab also improved components (e.g., for the proximity fuse) and established a special unit which tested captured German and Japanese radars. The laboratory was also responsible for Army radar development by civilian companies (e.g., GE AN/CPS-1 early warning radar, Rad Lab AN/CPS-4 height finder, Bendix AN/GPN-2 & LE AN/GPN-6 search sets, and Bendix AN/CPN-18 secondary surveillance radar).

By August 1943, Lt Col Paul E. Watson was the director of the Camp Evans Signal Laboratory. In addition to the Signal lab, Camp Evans had the Joint Army-Navy Tube Standardization (JANS) Laboratory and in May 1945, the Signal Corps Ground Services was reformed into the Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories. "Initial experimentation with an enemy mortar and artillery locating radar was conducted at Camp Evans in 1944." By the end of the war Camp Evans had "approximately 134 buildings and structures on approximately 217-acres" including the "Meteorological Branch of the Army Signal Corps" (cf. the Meteorological Branch at McCook Field).

Cold War events

Closure

The 1993 Base Realignment and Closure Commission at the end of the Cold War designated Camp Evans for closure (e.g., the Army Radiation Dosimetry Laboratory closed in 1999) Evans units moved to Fort Monmouth's "Main Post" (Project 42682), and Camp Evans land transferred to the National Park Service.

A section of the former camp is home to the Brookdale Campus at Wall, a branch of the Brookdale Community College.

A district of Camp Evans was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002, and camp areas became part of the Save America's Treasures project (2005 funds were donated to restore the AN/TLM-18.) In 2011, Institute for Exploratory Research began in "the basement at the InfoAge Science Center".

InfoAge

The InfoAge (Information Age Learning Center) was established in some of the historic district buildings (e.g., Bldg 9116 has "Radio Room One). InfoAge is a member of the Association of Science-Technology Centers and part of the NASA Digital Learning Network. Its focus is science and the scientific and military history of Camp Evans. Exhibits and participating organizations include computers, electronic warfare, a Cold War-era fallout shelter, vintage radio, the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame and Museum, and the New Jersey Shipwreck Museum.