The land upon which the UT Space Institute was built was part of holdings that in 1926 became the National Guard training facility, Camp Peay, named for Tennessee Governor Austin Peay. Camp Peay covered 1,040 acres. In 1941 the site was turned into an army training base, and an additional 85,000 acres located just beyond the old Camp Peay were acquired.
The new base, one of the US Army’s largest training bases during World War II was named Camp Forrest, for Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. The camp was a training area for infantry, artillery, engineers, signal organizations, and cooks. It also served as a hospital center and temporary encampment area for troops. William Northern Field, an air training base, was an addition used as a training site for crews of B-24 bombers. Camp Forrest became a prisoner-of-war camp on May 12, 1942. The camp housed Italian and German POWs. In 1946, with the war over, Camp Forrest and Northern Field were declared surplus property. Buildings were sold at auction, torn down, and carted away. Water, sewage, and electrical systems were sold as salvage. A 1949 congressional act established an Air Engineering Development Center, and in 1951 Camp Forrest became the site of Arnold Engineering Center.