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Camp McQuaide
 
The California National Guard training site for the 250th Coast Artillery Regiment was established in Capitola in 1926. The camp was located near the Santa Cruz-Capitola Airport (now occupied by Capitola and New Brighton Middle Schools) and basically used as a summer camp by the 250th for a two week manuever each year. Capitola's residents objected to the firing of guns during mauevers so, in 1938, the camp was relocated to another site.
 
The new location was 400 acres of newly purchased land off the coast near San Andreas Rd. It was at this site that the camp was dedicated and named in memory of the deceased, Major Joseph P. McQuaide, who had been the Chaplain of the 1st California Infantry and the 250th Coast Artillery for many years. Major, then Father McQuaide, was ordained in 1892, and served with the First California Volunteers in the Philippines and the Boxer rebellion in China. Father McQuaide rejoined the National Guard of California in 1917 and was assigned as Post Chaplain at Fort Winfield Scott, San Francisco. He went overseas, to France, with the 62nd Coast Artillery. Chaplain McQuaide died March 29, 1924.
 
Following the expansion of the Army in 1940, the camp was developed as a Coast Artillery Replacement Training Center. In 1943, the post was converted to the West Coast Processing Center, the official stockade for all the stateside Army AWOLs and other troublemakers. After World War II, the site was considered surplus and decomissioned. In 1948 the empty camp was considered for a local junior college but lacked countywide support. It was subsequently purchased by the Seventh-Day Adventists who founded the Monterey Bay Academy.
 
A member of the 250th Coast Artillery at Camp McQuaide, circa 1941
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