Arlington Heights Boulevard, now called Camp Bowie Boulevard, led west from the city to the resort area of Lake Como. The thoroughfare was renamed in 1919 by the Federation of Women’s Clubs to commemorate Camp Bowie, the huge World War I army training camp which occupied an area extending north to River Crest Country Club and south to Vickery Boulevard. The road consisted of double streetcar tracks flanked on each side by a narrow paved strip. The street was not paved again until 1927, when durable Thurber bricks were used. Islands for the streetcar line, which was removed prior to World War II, were narrowed in 1953 to increase the width of automobile traffic lanes. A commercial strip backing onto residential districts, the most intensive development of the thoroughfare occurred in the decades between the wars. The predominantly yellow and red brick commercial and residential structures from this period which line the red brick road provide a distinctive streetscape. Camp Bowie Boulevard was awarded a Texas Historical Marker in 1978; restoration of its brick surface continues. The street is a contributor to the proposed Brick Streets National Register Thematic Group.
