The World War I and World War II Military Camps (Callan, Matthews, Kearny) Collection is made up of documents, photographs, ephemera and other archival material pertaining to three World War I and World War II military camps located in La Jolla. Camp Calvin B. Matthews was active between 1917 and 1964, when the base was decommissioned and the land transferred to the University of California, San Diego. Camp Matthews was used by the U.S. Marine Corps as a gunnery range. Camp Kearny was a U.S. military base, first Army and later Navy, on the site of the current Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. It operated from 1917 to 1946. The base was named in honor of Brigadier General Stephen W. Kearny. In 1941 the first Army recruits arrived at Camp Callan; a large WWII training camp on Torrey Pines mesa where part of the University of California, San Diego campus sits and also the Torrey Pines Golf Course. At its peak the camp housed about 40,000 Army personnel. The last soldier left Camp Callan in December 1945. The La Jolla Historical Society also houses more extensive archival material on these military camps. See Subject Files RG002.08. This material pertains to the history and heritage of La Jolla, California; its people, places and events. A container list is included on the PDF and HTML versions.

The La Jolla Historical Society inspires and empowers the community to make La Jolla’s diverse past a relevant part of contemporary life. The La Jolla Historical Society’s Collections encompass over 80 years of actively collecting archival material, books, maps, scrapbooks, ephemera, fine art, newspapers, street and land use files, business and personal documents and historic and archaeological artifacts. The Society boasts over 20,000 photographs, over 1000 postcards, 400-plus architectural drawings and approximately 200 oral history recordings. Collecting was initiated by Howard Randolph and volunteers on the historical committee of the Library Association of La Jolla. The Collection began by gathering photographs and documentation in the late 1930s, which later became the nucleus of the La Jolla Historical Society’s Collections. The Society was created in 1963. Through many moves in location the Society continued collecting and expanding. Accumulated Collections took on its current construct in 2010 after the renovation of the La Jolla Historical Society’s campus of structures in central La Jolla, which consists of the 1904 Wisteria Cottage and 1940s Balmer Annex used for exhibits and programming, and a 1909 cottage used for business and research offices. The late Ellen Browning Scripps’ 1916 automobile garage was also renovated and now houses the Collection in a modern collections storage facility. Materials are housed in archival boxes, sleeves, envelopes and other archival-safe materials and are cared for according to standards and best practices of the museum profession. In 2016, the Society initiated new PastPerfect Museum Software to manage and catalog its Collections and in 2018 started using the Online Archive of California to upload searchable information from its Collections to enable improved public access. The Society will continue these processes and look forward to utilizing new opportunities to collect, preserve and share the history of La Jolla.

1 linear foot

The La Jolla Historical Society holds the copyright to any unpublished materials

The Collection is open for research