Within months, the area was being made more accessible with the construction of Kennon Road. The military lost little time in making preparations for establishing of its hill station. In March 1903, Major-General George Davis, examined the area that would later become Camp John Hay and reconfirmed its suitability not only as a site for a military reservation, but more importantly a sanitarium for troops serving in the Philippines.

The cool climate of Baguio and its environs was truly a lure few could resist. Notwithstanding the difficulties of travel and the lack of accommodations, people came up even before Kennon Road was completed. At the military outpost, tents were used as wards for those in need of recuperation. Thus, when the Kennon Road was opened in March 1905, the physical development of the city and the hill station shifted to high gear.

In the summer of 1905, Captain M.R. Hilgard, the first commander of the military post, supervised the construction of its first permanent buildings: an Officers’ Quarters and five cottages, one of which served as the Officers’ Mess. This started a building boom that would last until the 1920s. During that time, a military convalescence outpost using tents as wards would evolve into a showplace that was a haven for rest and recreation. The abiding interest of influential men made this possible: Governor General William Howard Taft, two commanding generals of the Philippine Division, Major General Leonard Wood (1906-1908) and Major General J. Franklin Bell (1911-1914.)

By the 1920s, Camp John Hay’s development before the war had reached its full extent. Little would change over the next quarter-century. Except in its periphery the Camp’ road network remained the same. Buildings constructed this time were kept well maintained through out the years. A continuity of mission and a preserved ambiance linked the decades and gave Camp John Hay a sense of time having stood still.
In time, the Camp’s name became associated with the best in military rest and recreation. As such it honored the man it had been named after: U.S. Secretary of State John Milton Hay who died in office. Hay started his career as a private secretary of President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. From that auspicious start, he went on to make a name for himself as a diplomat, historian, poet, journalist and novelist. Little did he realize when he presided over the implementation of the terms of the Treaty of Paris that his name would live on in a faraway corner of one of the United Sates’ first colonies . . . long after it had become an independent country itself.

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