Fun and/or Interesting
How Camp David Got Its Presidential Name
Camp David, the oft-mentioned presidential retreat, is located around 60 miles from Washington, DC, in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountain Park. Officially a US Navy installation, it was built by the WPA in the 1930s to serve as a camp for federal employees and their families, and was formally named Naval Support Facility Thurmont.
In 1942, during WWII, the camp was turned into a refuge for President Franklin D. Roosevelt when it was considered no longer safe for him to spend time on the presidential yacht, the USS Potomac. Roosevelt called it “Shangri-La,” a reference to the Himalayan paradise in James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon. When President Eisenhower took office in 1953, he renamed it Camp David to honor his father and (then five-year-old) grandson, both named David.