WORLD WAR I CHOCTAW CODE TALKERS RECEIVE TEXAS STATE HISTORICAL COMMISSION MARKER
Councilmember Macy Hill (left) joined Chief Gary Batton
of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and Nuchi Nashoba,
president of the Choctaw Code Talkers Association,
at the unveiling ceremony for the new Texas State
Historical Marker commemorating World War I’s Choctaw Code Talkers.
(Photo courtesy of Choctaw Nation)
Anyone driving by Veterans Memorial Park at the corner of Camp Bowie Boulevard and Clover Lane on April 1, 2026 could easily see that something special was going on. A crowd had gathered to celebrate the new permanent Texas State Historical Marker honoring the Choctaw Code Talkers from World War I. News outlets throughout the U.S. ran stories about this momentous event.
These Native American soldiers trained in Fort Worth at Camp Bowie in the 36th Infantry Division. When they shipped off to the battlefields in northern France in 1918, their native language was used to the benefit of the Allied forces who sent messages in Choctaw, thus the name Code Talkers. The enemy was never able to decipher the messages. The Code Talkers were sworn to secrecy about what they had done, but by the late 1980s their important contributions were discovered by their families.
This is the fourth Texas State Historical Marker on Camp Bowie Boulevard.
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