March 21, 1956

Camp Chaffee was re-designated as Fort Chaffee; the army generally refers to something as a fort when it is a more permanent installation than a camp. In 1958, Fort Chaffee was home to its most famous occupant, Elvis Presley. Presley received his first military haircut in Building 803. Fort Chaffee, just outside of Fort Smith (Sebastian County) and Barling (Sebastian County) on Arkansas Highway 22, has served the United States as an army training camp, a prisoner-of-war camp, and a refugee camp. Currently, 66,000 acres are used by the Arkansas National Guard as a training facility, with the Arkansas Air National Guard using the fort’s Razorback Range for target practice.