Price Camp SCV Price Camp SCV
Walter C. Rawls
by Gene Dressel

     Served as Camp commander beginning in 1942. His 1943 staff of Camp Officers included: W. Rufus Jackson, 1st Lt. Commander; Dr. drew S. Luten, 2nd Lt. Commander; William Warren, Adjutant; Alf E. Farrar, Treasurer; Thos. J. Skinker, Quartermaster; Wayne Ely, Judge Advocate; Dr. Grandison D. Royston, Surgeon; Dr. T. Wister White, Historian; and Paul Knabe, Color Sergeant. The Camp Lee/Jackson Dinner that year was held at the Forest Park Hotel on January 19th, (1943) and the principal speaker was Col. Thomas Jonathan Jackson Christian, Commanding Officer of the Army Air Force Command at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. Walter C. Rawls was born in Ivor, Virginia, and went to school in Suffolk. In 1950 he owned the famous “Rawls” plantation near Gatesville, North Carolina. He was a prominent St. Louis businessman, inventor and artist, and is credited with developing the first commercially feasible television set sold to the American public. Walter Rawls married Ella Freeman, and they had two sons; Dr. Thomas Rawls (Harvard ) and Walter Rawls Jr. who graduated from Missouri University, and is a lawyer.

Sources: Missouri Cities and Counties (clipping file at Missouri historical Society) Vol I p.144