Camp Roberts opened as the U.S. Army's largest basic training installation in mid-1941, just prior to us entering World War II. For the last 30 years, the volunteers at the Camp Roberts Historical Museum have been preserving and relating the camp's long and important role in our nation's defense, through WWII and the Korean War, and up to its current role as the main training site for the California Army National Guard. The camp also hosts training units from all the other US military components, regular and reserve, plus those from allied nations.

There are always new museum exhibits for guests to enjoy, and since the big expansion of the large Afghanistan Exhibit, museum volunteers have completed an Army field mess exhibit, a Vietnam era field hospital exhibit, and are building a new exhibit on helicopter training at the camp over the years, close to their Cobra attack helicopter. They are also hard at work on expanding and upgrading the large picnic and event center at the Main Museum. Visitors are constantly amazed at all the exhibits in both large historic buildings, as well as all the tracked and wheeled vehicles and helicopters. It is the largest Army museum complex in California, and the state's official military museum. They have a continuous history video showing, a research library, a gift shop, and don't miss the Wall of Fame that highlights the famous movie and TV stars who have done their Army training there, like Robert Mitchum, Steve Allen, Bob Newhart, Red Skelton, and William Holden. Visitors can climb into the tanks, helicopters and howitzers, and there is a new area where hids (and adults too) can try on a large array of uniforms from different nations and eras.