Camp Perry is a National Guard training facility located on the shore of Lake Erie in northern Ohio near Port Clinton. In addition to its regular mission as a military training base, Camp Perry also boasts the largest outdoor rifle range in the world after the NRA's Whittington Center in Raton, NM. The firing is done in the direction of the open water of the lake, that lies just beyond an earthen berm and the targets.HistoryThe original land for Camp Perry was purchased in 1906, and the reservation was named after Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the American naval commander who won the Battle of Put-in-Bay during the War of 1812. Rudimentary structures were constructed for use by competitors in the National Matches, and for transient military personnel. During World War I, Camp Perry served as a training center for Army officers and marksmanship instructors. Around 1918 an additional area immediately adjacent to the existing Camp Perry grounds was used to construct the Erie Army Depot for artillery ordnance storage.During the Second World War, Camp Perry served as a POW camp for German and Italian prisoners. After the war prisoner quarters were converted back to use by transient personnel who were at Perry for training. The camp was used extensively for several years after World War II, but use slowed somewhat during the 1960s. The Erie Army Depot closed in the mid-1960s and was eventually converted to industrial use. However, many of Camp Perry's original structures are still in use in one form or another. On June 24, 1998 a tornado damaged several buildings on the grounds.
