Florida Peace Officers School Collection

According to Jacksonville (FL) librarian and historian Glenn Emery, the Florida Peace Officers School was located in Duval County, just outside Jacksonville (Florida). National Guardsmen established a base there in 1909. During World War I, the site became Camp Johnston, a major training center for Army quartermasters. Camp Johnston was a complex that contained over 600 buildings and was the nation's second largest rifle range. Following the end of World War I in 1919, the National Guard returned, changing the base's name to Camp Foster, named after Joseph Clifford Reed Foster, one of Florida's Adjutant Generals. Inadequate federal funding during the Great Depression resulted in the Guard's abandonment of Camp Foster. During that time, many transient men from Northern states, according to Emery, relocated to this area, "seeking warm weather and sometimes work." The mayor of Jacksonville gave these men three choices: return home, suffer internment in the city prison farm, or live at a new work facility at Camp Foster. Established in 1932, the labor encampment occupied the former National Guard reservation and rifle range. In downtown Jacksonville, the police and the Salvation Army directed homeless men to Hemming Park, where a truck picked them up twice a day and carried them to Camp Foster.

The work camp at Camp Foster was the first of its kind in Florida, and served as the forerunner of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps. It was financed by the federal government and operated by the Duval County Emergency Relief Council. According to a 1939 federal government interview with local Jacksonville leader John P. Ingle, the occupants of Camp Foster included college men from university and technical institutions, who were appointed as teachers to groups forming classes in electrical work and other mechanical trades; artists and painters, who organized classes, cooks, laundrymen, and bakers. There were classes in English and those conducted in foreign languages, particularly French and German. Arrangements were made with the Jacksonville Public Library to supply books for the men to read. When the facility was closed in 1935, many homeless men had been able to establish permanent residence in Duval County and became certified for employment under the WPA. Others were able to return to their former homes in the North.

Robert Hawk, in "Florida's Army: Militia, State Troops, and National Guard, 1565-1985," noted that despite the closing of Camp Foster as a National Guard facility during the Great Depression, the Guard was used for state active duty many times. For example, it helped bring relief and order to storm-ravaged areas of Florida in 1928, 1933, and 1935. It helped protect jails and catch escaped Incarcerated people in 1932 and 1935 and quell a prison riot in 1933. Because of these events, a training program for peace, i.e., riot control and setting up temporary government services after disasters, was initiated during that time. According to Pamela Gibson, historian and Florida History Room librarian at the Manatee (FL) Public Library, this may have been the purpose of creating the Florida Peace Officers School.

On July 11, 1934, the Governor's Ball, considered the social highlight of the Guard's two-week summer camp at Camp Foster, was held in the Officers' Club. Florida Governor Dave Sholtz attended. During that time, Florida's first Peace Officers School convened at the Camp with 144 lawmen. Classes were held on arrest techniques, fingerprinting, and various legal subjects. It cannot be determined if subsequent Peace Officer Schools were held after that date. In 1939, following the conversion of Camp Foster in Jacksonville from a National Guard Post into the Jacksonville Naval Air Station, the National Guard relocated to Camp Blanding (FL).