Fort Gordon is a sprawling military base encompassing portions of four counties in and around Augusta. Now the U.S. Army Signal Center, the base has a long and illustrious history going back to Camp Gordon in Atlanta, where doughboys were trained for the bloody fields of Flanders. Over the years, Fort Gordon has grown from a rural community to a military police training center, to today’s signal corps training center. During its growth, the military post has hosted several famous names at the Fort Gordon Theater, including Rip Torn, Robert Duvall, John Anderson, and Jayne Mansfield. During World War II , the post was used as a holding facility for German and Italian prisoners of war and as a training facility for Comanche code talkers.