Camp Grayling: The USA’s Largest National Guard Training Facility

Before we get to some very cool old photos of Camp Grayling, first here are a couple of brief backstories:

The land on which Camp Grayling sits was originally owned by lumber bigshot Rasmus Hanson. In 1913, he granted the Michigan military approximately 147,000 acres of land for an area specifically for military training. The land bleeds into three counties: Crawford, Kalkaska and Otsego.

Troops began training the following year, 1914.

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In mid-2023, a Sgt. Major from the Utah National Guard approached five Chinese nationals near a lake after midnight. When questioned what they were doing there, they said they were with the media and were there to watch meteor showers.

That fall, one of the men was getting ready to travel to South Korea & China when he was detained by border officers at the Detroit airport. Upon inspection, officials found images of military vehicles in the man’s hard drive. These photos were taken on the same night the men were found by the Sgt. Major.

All five suspects had graduated earlier that year from the University of Michigan as part of a collaboration with UM and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. Three years earlier, two Chinese national students from UM were sent to prison for illegally photographing areas of a navy base in Key West, Florida.

In November 2024, a garage and former welding shop that was built in 1921 was about to be destroyed. Wanting a memento, workers took a brick that had the number “21” marked on it. It turned out to be a time capsule with a bevy of historic artifacts from 1921.

Camp Grayling remains the Michigan National Guard’s main training facility.
It also happens to be the country’s largest National Guard training facility.