HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
A WWII POW camp and 1975 Vietnamese refugee center, now an active Arkansas Guard training base with a free public military museum
7313 Terry St, Bldg. #803, Fort Smith, AR 72916
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free admission to the Chaffee Barbershop, Museum of Chaffee History, and Vietnam Veterans Museum. The surrounding Fort Chaffee Maneuver Training Center is an active Arkansas National Guard facility and is closed to the public.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat museum buildings in the Chaffee Crossing Historic District; the active training range beyond the district is off-limits to visitors
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1941 · WWII armored-division training post and German POW camp · 1975 resettlement center for over 50,000 Vietnamese refugees · 1980 processing center for roughly 19,000 Cuban Mariel refugees · Camp Chaffee Historic District listed on the National Register, 2011
Camp Chaffee's groundbreaking came on September 20, 1941, after the War Department bought over 15,000 acres from 712 landowners near Fort Smith. Construction took sixteen months, and the first soldiers reported for duty on December 7, 1941 — the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The post, named for Major General Adna R. Chaffee Jr., an early advocate of American tank warfare, trained the 6th, 14th, and 16th Armored Divisions between 1942 and 1946 while simultaneously holding roughly 3,000 German prisoners of war.
The post was redesignated Fort Chaffee in 1956. The Fifth Armored Division was stationed there through the 1950s, and on March 25, 1958, Elvis Presley received his Army induction haircut in the base barbershop — a moment the press dubbed "the haircut heard 'round the world." During the Vietnam War, Fort Chaffee also served as a test site for tactical herbicides including Agent Orange.
In 1975, following the fall of Saigon, Fort Chaffee became one of four U.S. resettlement centers for Southeast Asian refugees, processing 50,809 people — medical screening, sponsor matching, and resettlement across the country. Five years later, after the Mariel boatlift, the fort processed roughly 19,000 Cuban refugees. Crowding and unrest led to a riot on June 1, 1980, in which 62 people were injured, 46 were arrested, and several barracks were burned.
The fort's active-duty role wound down through the 1990s, and since 1997 the Arkansas Army National Guard has run the surrounding 66,000 acres as the Fort Chaffee Maneuver Training Center. The Camp Chaffee Historic District, including the barbershop and the base's original administrative buildings, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.
Sources
Fort Chaffee's ghost stories are told mostly in general terms — figures described as soldiers reported walking parts of the old post, unexplained sounds, and a sense of unease that local writers attribute to the base's use as a wartime POW camp and, later, a crowded refugee processing center. Ghost Adventures traveled to the fort for a 2010 episode, framing the base's WWII POW camp and 1980s Cuban refugee history as the backdrop for its investigation; the crew focused much of its filming on the fort's stockade and inner confinement buildings.
Regional roundups of Arkansas hauntings have repeated the fort's reputation since, generally citing the same run of history — the POW camp, the refugee operations, the 1980 riot — without adding documented incidents of their own. No named ghost or specific verified sighting has turned up in the sourcing available for this entry; the reputation appears to rest on the base's genuinely eventful and, at times, difficult history rather than on any single well-documented case.
Media Appearances
Three free museums in the Chaffee Crossing Historic District: the barbershop where Elvis Presley got his induction haircut on March 25, 1958; the Museum of Chaffee History, with the largest collection of Fort Chaffee artifacts anywhere, covering the base's WWII POW camp, 1975 Vietnamese and 1980 Cuban refugee operations; and the Vietnam Veterans Museum.
The Camp Chaffee Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011, preserves WWII-era barracks and administrative buildings along public streets around the museum complex — the only part of the base open to visitors without military clearance.
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