Fort Knox may never have been built if Camp Zachary Taylor had not been constructed in Louisville. When it was announced that 16 Cantonments were going to be built by the US Government in various locations across the country, the Louisville Board of Trade lobbied for one of them to be built here. The Board of Trade was an organization comprised of the Mayor of Louisville, John H. Buschmeyer, and Louisville businessmen such as Mr. Fred M. Sackett, President of the Board of Trade (and future Congressman), Mr. William Heyburn, and Mr. Jas. B. Wilson, Chief Engineer and Superintendent of the Louisville Water Co. and several other prominent businessmen. Louisville was competing for the Camp with several other cities. Evansville, Ind., Fort Wayne, Ind., Indianapolis, Ind., Bowling Green, Ky., Lexington, Ky., and Jeffersonville, Ind. were all in the race to win the Camp.

One of the reasons that Louisville was selected to build one of the camps here was, that it had the option of using the land around West Point Ky for Artillery practice. West Point had 16,000 acres available for an artillery range. This land had been used in the past for similar training as far back as the civil war. Camp Taylor sent men to that site from Sept 1917 until August of 1918. Men were housed in tents due to there only being a few permanent structures on the land at the time. It was not until April 1918 that a temporary camp was authorized to be built at West Point. That construction began in June of 1918. In a few weeks it was decided that the area around West Point was not large enough and the camp was expanded to take in the town of Stithton, Ky. The Constructing Quartermaster in charge of building what was now going to be named Camp Knox, was Major W. H. Radcliffe.

The new Camp was built to house 10,000 men and had a firing range with the capacity of 50 cannons. Upon the completion of Camp Knox, the US Army conducted the first training camp for artillery in the United States at Camp Zachary Taylor.  The” Field Artillery Central Officers Training School” (FACOTS)  was held at Camp Zachary Taylor, and Camp Knox was the” hands on” training location.

In reality, Fort (Camp) Knox was actually the 17th Cantonment build, although only 16 were authorized by congress in 1917. Now home of the Armor School, Ireland Army Hospital, the Patton Museum and the United States Bullion Depository, it houses 23,000 men and women. If not for Camp Zachary Taylor, Fort Knox may not have ever been built.