Camp Lehigh

Camp Lehigh was a United States Army base in New Jersey and one of the Strategic Scientific Reserve's training facilities during World War II. When the war ended, it became S.H.I.E.L.D.'s first base of operations and housed the Tesseract and Arnim Zola's mind. The base was eventually abandoned by both the U.S. Army and S.H.I.E.L.D., although HYDRA continued to use the facility as Zola's mind was still hidden there. In 2014, HYDRA attacked Camp Lehigh with a missile strike in an attempt to kill Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff, who had visited the facility.
By 2025, a facility was built on the Camp Lehigh premises and was used to host the first annual New Jersey AvengerCon.
==History==
===World War II===
Camp Lehigh was established in 1914 as a base of the United States Army.Guidebook to the Marvel Cinematic Universe - Captain America: The First Avenger By 1943, the camp was used by the Strategic Scientific Reserve as a military training facility for candidates of Project Rebirth.
Abraham Erskine pressured himself to find a perfect candidate for the project, in the wake of the failure of Johann Schmidt's procedure. Erskine reminded Chester Phillips that he never wrote down the actual formula of the serum, so Schmidt had no choice but to keep him alive.Captain America: First Vengeance
 
Eventually, Erskine picked Steve Rogers, who was brought to the camp as Erskine's primary candidate, although everyone realized that he didn't match with the rest of the candidates. Peggy Carter introduced herself as the overseer of every operation carried out by the SSR and rapidly established her authority. Phillips then gave a speech to the recruits, being distraught by Rogers' frail appearance, and explained the purpose of Project Rebirth, trying to create an army of super-soldiers to take down Adolf Hitler's forces.
The candidates began a hard week of training under the supervision of Michael Duffy, and while Gilmore Hodge was Phillips' personal favorite, Rogers was constantly obstructed by his colleagues. However, Rogers impressed everyone with his different approach to situations, such as when he managed to retrieve Camp Lehigh's flag from a pole for the first time in history by simply letting the pole fall instead of climbing it.
Phillips, disagreeing with Erskine's choice of Rogers as his primary candidate, tried to make him change his mind, and choose Hodges as the best soldier, but Erskine dismissed him, describing Hodges as a bully. To prove that Rogers was not a suitable candidate as he lacked bravery needed for a soldier, Phillips threw a fake grenade among the candidates during a training exercise. Rogers used his body as a shield to protect everyone from the possible explosion while Hodges hid, causing Phillips to acquiesce to Erskine's decision for Rogers' inclusion.
Erskine visited Rogers the night before the project's start-up, and Rogers wondered why he was chosen. Erskine told Rogers how the Nazis managed to seize political power in Germany, and how Hitler found out about him and his work. Hitler coerced Erskine by sending Schmidt, who became the first test subject for Erskine's formula, that, at the time, was not finished. Erskine then tried to drink a toast with Rogers, before realizing that Rogers could not drink alcohol before being administered with the serum, so Erskine ended up drinking both sips after making Rogers promise that he would be a good man whatever happened during the procedure.
===S.H.I.E.L.D. Office===
Following World War II, Camp Lehigh was transformed into one of the first S.H.I.E.L.D. facilities, with the main office disguised as an ammunition bunker. It is suggested the office was strategically built within 500 yards of a barrack, which is against army regulations to allow anyone with knowledge of the United States Army to notice something was not right with this building.
Peggy Carter, Howard Stark, and Chester Phillips personally run the facility, together with Hank Pym and Arnim Zola, who was recruited during Operation Paperclip. S.H.I.E.L.D. supervised the research of the Tesseract and Pym Particles.Avengers: Endgame Eventually, Zola was diagnosed with a terminal disease, so in order to preserve his mind and serving the purposes of HYDRA, Zola devised a method to save his mind in a series of computers, establishing a large room underneath the S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker at Camp Lehigh. Zola transferred his mind to two hundred thousand feet of data banks, and the room became essentially his brain. From this room, he designed an algorithm to be used as the targeting software for Project Insight, that was later transferred to the Lemurian Star.
===Destruction of Camp Lehigh===
In 2014, Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff arrived at Camp Lehigh, the source of the files contained retrieved in the Lemurian Star, and Rogers revealed it was the military base where he was trained during World War II. Rogers had flashbacks of his time there while wandering through the base, nostalgically remembering how he trained as hard as he could before being administered the Super Soldier Serum. Romanoff found no traces of heat signatures or signals that could reveal the exact source of the data and guessed that whoever wrote the file must have used a router to hide his signal.
However, Rogers noticed a building that should not have been there, an ammunition bunker located near the barracks against army regulations. As they entered the bunker and turned on the lights, Rogers and Romanoff noticed it was actually a S.H.I.E.L.D. office, and wandered inside finding a room displaying portraits of Howard Stark, Peggy Carter, and Chester Phillips. Rogers approached a suspicious bookshelf, feeling the wind was blowing behind it, and wondered what was the need to hide an elevator in an already secret office as he moved the bookshelf and revealed an elevator. In the basement, the two entered a room with a large number of old computers, with Romanoff guessing the technology was too old to be the source of the files.
However, Romanoff suddenly noticed a small flash drive port, and placed the flash drive in it, activating the central computer. Suddenly, the system started to speak, pointing a camera to them and calling both Rogers and Romanoff by their real names and revealing their years of birth. Romanoff wondered if it was some kind of a recording, but the system said it was not, and revealed his actual identity as that of Arnim Zola.
Rogers revealed that Zola was a scientist who worked for Red Skull, but who had died years before. Zola then explained how his mind was transferred to the computers as he received a terminal diagnosis in 1972, and how he was recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. during Operation Paperclip. Zola also explained how he used his position within S.H.I.E.L.D. to rebuild HYDRA inside the organization, and fulfilled its original belief, world domination while removing the freedom of humanity. However, as World War II taught them that they would resist if freedom was taken by force, HYDRA fed crisis and war in the world in order to make humanity willingly surrender its own freedom, shaping history and changing it.
Romanoff could not believe that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been unable to stop them, and Zola admitted they resorted to eliminate all threats to HYDRA, such as Howard Stark or Nick Fury, whose assassinations were organized by HYDRA. Zola said that the world was finally so chaotic that humanity was to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security and HYDRA will purify the world to establish a new world order. Rogers angrily asked about the contents of the flash drive from the Lemurian Star, and Zola answered it was an algorithm to provide the insight needed for Project Insight, acknowledging it was fascinating, though they would be dead by the time he explained it. 
 
Suddenly, the doors of the room started to close, and though Rogers tries to stop them by throwing his shield in between, he was too late. Romanoff detected a short-range missile thrown by S.H.I.E.L.D., and Zola revealed he had been stalling them. Romanoff quickly retrieved the flash drive out of the port and Rogers managed to locate a small opening on the ground, where he entered with Romanoff and protected her with his shield from the explosion. Both survived the explosion, and Rogers cleared a path out of the debris to escape.
Camp Lehigh was then searched by Brock Rumlow and a group of STRIKE agents who were searching for Rogers and Romanoff. Rumlow saw a footprint indicating they managed to survive and escape, and contacted HYDRA in order to call in reinforcements.
===Rebuilt Facility===
====Hosting AvengerCon====
Camp Lehigh was later rebuilt. In 2025, it hosted the first New Jersey AvengerCon. Kamala Khan and Bruno Carrelli attended the convention and witnessed the various cosplayers dressed up as Avengers, Asgardians, Wakandans, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Individual sections were dedicated to each Avenger, such as Steve Rogers, Thor, Wanda Maximoff, Bruce Banner, Scott Lang, and Rocket. A section was in tribute to Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff acknowledging both their sacrifices to restore the population. 
During the convention, Khan participated in a Captain Marvel cosplayer competition, in which she inadvertently released her newfound powers. This caused a life-size Ant-Man model to collapse and the Ant-Man helmet to cause destruction inside the convention. When Khan was approached by Zoe Zimmer, a life-sized model of Mjølnir was unhooked and hit Zimmer, causing her to fall. Khan used her hard light powers to rescue Zimmer, before she and Carrelli fled the convention.Ms. Marvel: 1.01: Generation Why
===Alternate Universes===
====Steve Rogers' Candidacy====
In an alternate universe, Steve Rogers, Gilmore Hodges, and several other soldiers were brought to Camp Lehigh as they were candidates for Project Rebirth. The soldiers were introduced to Chester Phillips, Abraham Erskine, and Peggy Carter. Hodges did not take Carter seriously due to her appearance, so she demonstrated her martial arts abilities on him to scare him into taking her seriously.
The soldiers then began their training, and Rogers was significantly outperformed by the rest of the soldiers. Phillips attempted to use this to advocate for Hodges to be chosen, but Erskine said that Rogers would be the best choice. The soldiers continued on an obstacle course crawling through the mud under barbed wire, and Hodges kicked one of the support beams, dropping the barbed wire on Rogers. Phillips and Erskine debated who the best candidate was, and Erskine explained that Rogers' character should not outweigh Hodges' athleticism. He attempted to demonstrate his point by throwing a dummy grenade at the soldiers, but Rogers responded by jumping on top of the grenade to protect everyone else. This cemented Rogers as the most suitable candidate.
The rest of the candidates were sent home as Rogers was told about the Super Soldier Serum with which he would be injected. That night, Rogers sat in an empty barracks and was joined by Erskine. Rogers asked why Erskine chose him for the serum, so Erskine explained that when the serum had been tested in Germany by Johann Schmidt, it had turned him into a monster. Erskine explained that he chose Rogers because he was a good person.Captain America: The First Avenger
====Theft of the Space Stone====
In 2023, the Avengers used the Quantum Realm to time travel through the Multiverse in order to obtain the six Infinity Stones from alternate past timelines. Having failed to acquire the Tesseract in an alternate 2012, Steve Rogers and Tony Stark used the Quantum Realm to travel to an alternate timeline Camp Lehigh on April 7, 1970,in order to steal the Tesseract, along with more Pym Particles. Upon stealing the cube, Stark encountered his father. While trying to escape the camp's guards after stealing Pym Particles from Hank Pym's office, Rogers accidentally entered Peggy Carter's office and noticed her on the other side of a window. After Stark said goodbye to his father, he and Rogers left. Later, Rogers returned to the alternate 1970 to return the Space Stone to Camp Lehigh, albeit without the Tesseract.
====Zombie Apocalypse====
In an alternate timeline, survivors of the Zombie Apocalypse consisting of Hope van Dyne, Kurt Goreshter, Happy Hogan, Okoye, Sharon Carter, Peter Parker, Bucky Barnes and Bruce Banner received a beacon signal in their base. Banner identified the signal as a hexacode and Carter deduced it to be coming from Camp Lehigh. 
Upon arriving at the base by way of train, they found it to be overrun by a horde of zombies. This prompted van Dyne to enlarge herself and transport them over the fence, sacrificing herself in the process. The team then observed that the zombies didn't walk past the fence, despite an opening for them to do so. They were then met by Vision, who welcomed them into the base and explained to them that the zombies disliked the signal that he emitted through the Mind Stone.
Vision told them that he had been experimenting using the Mind Stone as a cure and had reverted Scott Lang back to human form, although only managed to revert his head back. Barnes then left to find an aircraft and explored the base only to find a zombified Wanda Maximoff and an injured T'Challa. Barnes helped T'Challa out to the others and Vision told them that he had been luring survivors there in order to feed Maximoff, as the Mind Stone didn't work on her. 
Having been disturbed by their presence, Maximoff entered the room, killing Goreshter, and forcing the others to flee the base. As they were escaping, Maximoff captured Okoye and killed her. Vision then told them that there was a Quadjet in the hangar and forcibly removed the Mind Stone from his head, killing himself. Barnes told the others to go and confronted Maximoff, but Maximoff upset about Vision's death, tossed him aside. Banner retrieved the Stone and handed it to Parker, while transforming into Hulk to fight off Maximoff and the horde, as Parker, Lang, and T'Challa escaped.What If...?: 1.05: What If... Zombies?!
==Appearances==
Appearances for Camp Lehigh
In chronological order:
*Captain America: The First Avenger
**Captain America: First Vengeance
**Captain America: The First Avenger Adaptation
*Avengers: Endgame (alternate 1970)
*Avengers: Endgame (mentioned; alternate 2012)
*Captain America: The Winter Soldier
**Captain America: Civil War Prelude
*What If...?
**Season One
***What If... Ultron Won? (mentioned; alternate 2015)
***What If... Zombies?! (alternate 2018)
*Ms. Marvel
**Season One 
***Generation Why
==Trivia==
*In the comics, Camp Lehigh was located in Virginia, few kilometers outside Arlington.
*In Captain America: The First Avenger, Camp Lehigh is mentioned to be situated in New York, however, in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it is explicitly stated to be located in Wheaton, New Jersey.
==References==
==External Links==
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Category:Locations
Category:Captain America: The First Avenger Locations
Category:Captain America: The Winter Soldier Locations
Category:Avengers: Endgame Locations
Category:What If...? Locations
Category:Ms. Marvel (TV series) Locations
Category:Comics Locations
Category:Book Locations
Category:Video Games Locations
Category:United States Armed Forces Facilities
Category:United States Armed Forces Facilities/Camp Lehigh Time Heist
Category:Strategic Scientific Reserve Facilities
Category:S.H.I.E.L.D. Facilities