Camp Polk

Photographed March 22, 2004

1800 block of Blue Ridge Road

History: Camp Polk originally served as the only Army tank training base in the United States during World War I. In 1920, the state obtained the land for a prison farm and later youth detention center. In 1963, most of the later buildings were erected. The prison housed 381 male youths and had 330 employees on 20 acres, 14 of which were fenced. Polk Youth Center moved to a new facility in Butner in 1998; the Blue Ridge Road site was abandoned that year and demolished in 2003.

June 2016 - Site under development as "art park" extension of art museum.

Update: Following a major, yearlong redesign, the expanded 164-acre park—one of the largest museum parks in the country—celebrated its reopening in November 2016. It is officially called The Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park at the North Carolina Museum of Art.

This page was last updated on April 23, 2024.

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