The Camp Roberts Historical Museum does not drift into the mainstream of museums, with every exhibit locked away behind glass. Instead, the visitor drifts among the epochs of the camp's enormous history, in an intimate association with the subject. Even the buildings and surroundings are kept primitive to some noticeable extent in order to imbue in the visitor a sense of the historic. It is experiential. It's not a product. It's not a showcase. It's a virtual fairground of important soldier history. And important visitors from the world over have commented that it is one of the most fascinating, well-designed, informative and interesting museum in the nation.

The Museum's mission is to familiarize military and civilian visitors with the long legacy of Camp Roberts as a major training site for America's military. When Camp Roberts was completed in 1941 Congress named it after Army Corporal Harold Roberts, the second tank crewman to receive the Medal of Honor. Roberts was killed at age 22 during the Argonne Offensive of World War I. The camp was originally the US Army's largest Replacement Training Center in the entire nation, and trained almost a half-million soldiers during World War II alone. It has continually trained active and reserve soldiers, including those of all U.S. military components and even Allied soldiers, since 1941.

Many celebrities did their Army training at the camp, including Red Skelton, Robert Mitchum, Steve Allen, Steve Reeves, Jackie Coogan, Jon Hall, Robert Fuller, and there is a Wall of Fame exhibit on them in the museum.

The many exhibits take the visitor from World War II through the Korean War and right up to current mobilizations to the Middle East. There are also exhibits on the early ranches and Salinan Indians who occupied the area prior to construction of the camp.

The camp has been run by the California Army National Guard since 1971 as its main training and pre-deployment site. It is currently one of the largest and most important National Guard training installations in the United States. The Camp Roberts Museum is housed in two historic World War II era buildings provided by the California Army National Guard, and the staffing consists of a dedicated all-volunteer staff.

The Museum's income for developing and maintaining exhibits comes from visitor donations, a membership program, and proceeds from the museum gift shop. The Museum has two video viewing areas, a conference area, a rear lawn with picnic facilities, a military library, and a kitchen. The Museum is run through an established non-profit organization and has a Board of Chancellors that includes Army Generals and members of the Caspar Weinberger family. The Museum also has access to the historic Soldier Bowl, an outdoor amphitheater that has been the site for countless celebrity shows and films (Laurel and Hardy headlined the very first USO Camp Show for soldiers there in 1941). It also has access to the restored WWII-era Theater No. 1 next to the Museum Annex, as well as other facilities for special events.

Camp Roberts is the scene of many WWII reenactment battles, facilitated by the Museum and the Camp Operations Directorate. The Museum is open to the general public on Thursdays andSaturdays, from 9am to 4pm, and admission is always free. Entrance to the Museum is gained by coming through the main gate of the camp, which has a dedicated off-ramp from U.S. Highway 101, just 12 miles north of Paso Robles, California. Driver should be in possession of drivers license, registration and proof of insurance for the vehicle.

The Camp Roberts Historical Museum began in the early 1980s, when Master Sergeant Albert Davis, a National Guardsman and civilian worker at Camp Roberts began researching the history of the Camp. An avid military historian, MSG Davis began collecting military items, many with provenance to the Camp. He eventually received permission to set up exhibits in the World War era Camp Roberts Post Office building. As military tanks and other tracked vehicles were released from the Army inventory, he began having select ones of historical significance transferred into the collection, and eventually opened it up to soldiers and to the general public on a part-time basis. Eventually, both the collection and the demand grew to the extent that the Camp Commander assigned the Museum use of Building 114, originally built by the Red Cross in WWII as their headquarters, and later used as the Camp Commander's home.

That building became the Main Museum, and the old post office became an annex, housing mostly WWII era vehicles. When MSG Davis persuaded Sergeant First Class Gary McMaster, the Camp Operations Sergeant, to assist him in developing the collections, a brochure was developed, a membership program was begun, vintage furniture was introduced, and the gift shop was expanded-all with the goal to both improve the museum's appearance and to expand revenue for future exhibits. SFC McMaster first developed the Korean War Room during the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War, then proceeded to perform an extensive upgrading and enhancement of all the exhibit areas in the Main Museum, procure mannequins to display many of the fine historic uniforms, and build many new exhibits in the Museum Annex, such as Red's Room (an recreation of the barracks area of comedian Red Skelton, "Camp Roberts' Most Famous Private"); the Val Rosing Exhibit (an extensive exhibit on the live shows produced for soldiers during WWII that used soldier talent and MGM contract players); an exhibit on the radio shows broadcast nationally from Camp Roberts during WWII, starring Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, Bob Hope and others, including original scripts; an exhibit on the Camp Roberts Chapels and Chaplains; a Camp Roberts sports photo exhibit; an exhibit on the long-running partnership program between the California Army National Guard and the Ukrainian Reserves; and others. SFC McMaster assisted MSG Davis by editing MSG Davis's extensive history of Camp Roberts, titled "Guns Across the Salinas," for publication, and they founded the Camp Roberts Historical Museum Foundation to facilitate the membership program. Upon MSG Davis's passing in 2002, SFC McMaster became the driving force behind the museum's expansion.

Now retired from the Army, he continues as the Curator, with Dirk Hale--another retired fulltime Guardsman NCO--as Assistant Chairman of the Foundation. Curator McMaster has written and published books on the history of Camp Roberts that are available in the Museum Gift Shop, including "The Ultimate Sacrifice," which is the biography of Corporal Harold W. Roberts, and "Hollywood at Camp Roberts," that relates the stories of the camp's many celebrity trainees and live Hollywood shows. The Camp Roberts Historical Museum is currently the largest Army-theme museum in the western United States.