The Officer's Club on the site of the former Douglas POW Camp, constructed in 1943, is a one-story rectangular building measuring 37 feet wide and 132 feet long. The utilitarian, wood-framed building rests on a partial concrete pad and concrete footers.
Stucco applied during the 1980s covers the original walls that were sided with asbestos shingles. The gable roof is covered with asphalt shingles. An enclosed porch projects from the west side of the building. A tall brick chimney is located on the far northeast side of the roof.
A kitchen, pantry, and furnace room are located at the north end of the building which is accessed by a single door on the north side. South of the kitchen area on either side of a hallway are located two bathrooms, a hall closet, and a small game room. The majority of the building is devoted to a large club room from which one can access, through two separate doorways, the west side enclosed porch which also has a door leading to the small game room. The south side of the building beyond the club room consists of a large hallway and three separate rooms now used for storage. An exit doorway on the south side is covered with a small shed roof and concrete steps lead up to it.
The building includes numerous single and paired, wood-framed, six- over-six lite windows. The west side porch has banks of windows on its three sides; most have been stuccoed over. Most interior walls are covered with celotex although the walls of the club room and small game room are half-paneled. Floors in the kitchen and pantry area are concrete while others in the more public areas are wood. The kitchen and bathroom floors have been covered with linoleum and both entry halls are now carpeted. Ten wood trusses project through the newer drop ceiling in the club room. All other ceilings are the original celotex. Some globe light fixtures hang from the ceiling in the club room along with newer fluorescent units.
The club room features one of Wyoming's 20th-century treasures, sixteen murals painted by three Italian prisoners-of-war during 1943–1944. The charmingly rendered murals painted directly on the celotex walls depict icons of the mythical American west: cowboys, Indians, wagon trains, cattle drives, a stockade fort, and even the famous Old Faithful geyser in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park. The murals gain special significance for the very reason that they are a vision of the west created by three Italians who had most likely only seen the fabled American West through a train window. The images they created were no doubt inspired from American movies and books.
Within the past year, an effort has been made by the local historic preservation board and the City of Douglas to assist the dedicated Odd Fellows in preserving this unique structure. Grant funds were received to hire a conservator for an analysis of the paintings and the development of a conservation plan. The next step is to find funding for the actual conservation of the murals. It is hoped that the building can one day be open to the public so they can view the murals. Few people in Wyoming today, outside of Douglas residents, are even aware the murals exist.
The building exhibits integrity of design, location, feeling, association, and workmanship. The stucco siding over the original has a negative impact on integrity of materials. Integrity of the setting has been compromised by nearby development that has taken place over the past thirty years.
The former Officer's Club at the Douglas Prisoner of War Camp is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion A for its association with the direct impact of World War II on hundreds of local communities in the United States.
Although armed conflict never reached the US shores, the effects of the war were nonetheless experienced in many different ways on the home front. The Douglas POW Camp exemplifies indirectly the strength and power the United States brought to the European war effort, especially the technological, mobilization, and organizational skills that were quickly marshaled for the war effort as evidenced by the rapid construction of various types of military facilities built in record time throughout the country.
The building also represents a new approach to construction techniques introduced on a mass scale during this time of rapid defense mobilization: the standardization of plans for pre-fab units, and assembly-line approach to construction of building with a planned temporary shelf life.
Murals
Especially significant are the murals painted on the interior walls of the building by three Italian POWs. The images are of the American West and take on special meaning in that they were painted by men who had most likely not seen the west other than in movies and books. Although murals were painted at other military installations throughout the United States during the World War II period, a survey of other State Historic Preservation Offices revealed that only a few survive due to demolition of buildings never expected to remain standing long enough to qualify as "historic". The survey also indicated that these murals may be the only extant collection painted by Italian POWs as most others were reputed to be the work of German prisoners.
The Officers Club is located on the site of the former Prisoner of War Camp and was one of the 180 buildings constructed during a 95-day period in the spring of 1943 for an estimated cost of $1.1 million. The camp was among the 155 base camps and branch camps that were constructed throughout the United States during the war to house Prisoners of War captured in Europe and the African Theatre.
Yellowstone
Independence Rock
Western Fort
Wagon Train
Round Up
Branding/Rocky Trail
Western Saloon
Indian Peace Pipe
Indian Lookout
Camp history
During 1942, the first year of the war for the United States, an estimated 2000 prisoners came to the United States. Overcrowded POW compounds overseas led U. S. military authorities to come up with an American internment program by September of that year. The immediate measures to accommodate over 50,000 POWS held by the British in North Africa included reactivating Civilian Conservation Corps camps; opening unused portions of several major military bases; utilizing such facilities as fairgrounds, race tracks, armories, and auditoriums; and setting up "tent cities' in remote areas of the country.
The longer-range $50 million-dollar program of POW camp construction began in the fall of 1942. Security regulations dictated the camps be located in remote and isolated areas. No camps could be built within 170 miles inland from the east and west coasts; nor within a 150-mile wide zone (240km) along the Canadian and Mexican borders. Locations near shipyards, munitions plants, and other vital wartime industries were forbidden due to fears of sabotage. The ideal site, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, was an area of 350 acres (140ha) of level and well-drained land located within five miles of a railroad and 500 feet (150m) from any public road.
Construction of POW camps in the United States also abided by the international Geneva Convention agreements, signed by 47 world powers in 1929, which defined treatment of enemy prisoners. The U.S.A. made a much greater attempt to live up to the pact than the Axis powers. According to interpretation by American military leaders, camps had to be constructed to the minimum standards of a regular military compound.
The presence of a large POW camp would provide an economic boon to a state and the nearby communities so "Chambers of Commerce, business men, the Commerce and department, city mayors, and the state's political leaders sought to secure the establishment of military installations'" in Wyoming, according to historian T. A. Larson. These lobbying efforts resulted in the construction of a new air base at Casper, a large expansion at Cheyenne's Fort F. E. Warren, and the selection of a site on the outskirts of the small town of Douglas as the location for a POW camp.
History of the camp on a sign at the entrance
The Douglas site met the defense regulations. Located in Converse County within one mile of a rail line that passed through downtown Douglas, the 687-acre site (278ha) sat above the banks of the North Platte River. The federal government acquired the land through condemnation; a legal battle ensued in which the defendants were eventually awarded more money for their land than the government had initially proposed. Government surveyors and engineers arrived in Douglas in December, 1942, fueling rumors of the proposed POW camp although the official announcement did not come until January, 1943. Peter Kiewit and Sons of Omaha, Nebraska came in with the low bid and the company set up operations in Douglas by February. Four to five hundred construction workers used the 4-H buildings on the state fairgrounds as dorms and a dining hall. The government contract specified the buildings be completed within 120 days; Kiewit and Sons finished the job in 95 days.
The Officers quarters, clubhouse, and softball field were located at the north main entrance to the camp, outside the double rows of wired fencing (the inner fence was electrified) and guard towers that surrounded the rest of the complex. The hospital area and the troop barracks were built directly inside the fence. Beyond that, the prison complex was organized into three compounds, separated by wire electrified fencing, each with a capacity of approximately one thousand men. Auxiliary areas for prisoners included a large outdoor recreation area near the river, a softball field, and one football field. The camp also accommodated a variety of operational functions in buildings designed for the motor pool, a heating plant, warehouses, corrals, a K-9 dog unit, a sewage disposal plant, as well as a salvage yard and gravel pit.
The Douglas mayor urged local residents to rent any spare rooms in their houses to the incoming military personnel and their families as a housing crunch was inevitable in the town. The town leaders with the home front war effort quickly established a Service Men's Center in the downstairs room of the Moose Lodge. Moose members cleaned and remodeled the room while the ladies of the lodge scrounged up furniture and curtains from local donations. The Moose Lodge basement became a popular hangout for servicemen with daily hours from 5 p.m. till midnight, and stayed open till 2 a.m. on Saturday nights. The Center affiliated with the national USO organization during the final days of the war. The local newspaper focused on the anticipation and excitement of the arrival of the U. S. Army coming to their town, especially the officers, and downplayed any apprehension people may have felt about having an enemy population one mile away that outnumbered the townsfolk.
A role was planned for the prisoners as employees outside of the camp.[3] As elsewhere throughout the United States, the departure of thousands of Wyoming's men to the war left the state with a critical shortage of agricultural labor. POWs provided a solution to the problem and performed many essential jobs related to agriculture, particularly harvesting crops whether it was cotton in the South or sugar beets and timber in Wyoming. In anticipation of the much-needed prison labor, local Converse County ranchers and farmers formed a corporation before the first prisoner arrived and appointed a manager to handle the governmental red tape involved in the contracting procedures.
Camp opening
The first of the eventual five hundred plus Army personnel arrived at the camp in May and more filtered in throughout the summer of 1942. On June 20, before the camp received any POWs, the new facility was opened for the first and only time to the curious civilian population. Over two thousand people from seventeen Wyoming counties visited the site during the two-hour open house and, according to local newspaper reports, were especially impressed by the 150-bed hospital.
Italian POWs
Italians were the first group of POWs that arrived in August, 1942 from New York City. A crowd gathered to watch the four hundred and twelve closely guarded captives from the Tunisian Campaign as they alighted from the train in Douglas and proceeded to march, in units of fifty, the one mile to the outlying camp. As routine for all incoming POWs, the Italian prisoners were checked into the camp through the hospital where they were examined and treated for minor disorders. Their clothes were searched and each man was issued new clothing and assigned to one of the three compounds. By year end, the number of Italian POWs at the camp had reached 1900 men and included one major, four captains, and twenty two lieutenants. The Italian officers had their own barracks and were assigned supervisory duties over their enlisted compatriots. The first prisoner to die from illness at the camp was a captain whose body was buried in a small cemetery plot on the camp grounds and later disinterred and sent back to Italy.
The prisoners enjoyed playing soccer and doing calisthenics outside in spite of the cold winter. One Italian prisoner learned American cooking at the camp and enjoyed cooking both American and Italian food for his fellow prisoners, the camp officers, and patients and staff at the hospital. A Catholic chaplain of Italian descent provided musical instruments to some of the prisoners. They set up a small Catholic church in the camp theater where they also put on musical and theatrical productions with costumes made of flour sacks.
Three Italian prisoners left a remarkable artistic legacy with the sixteen murals they painted almost sixty years ago that can be seen today on the walls of the Officers Club, one of only a few camp buildings still standing. These men, known only by their signatures on the murals- -V. Finotti, E. Tarquinio, and F. DeRossi - painted a variety of western scenes. The large murals, most are six feet high and some as long as fifteen feet, depict cowboys, bar shootouts, a Native American smoking a peace pipe, a wagon train, a frontier stockade fort, and most surprisingly, Yellowstone National Park's Old Faithful geyser erupting in front of a cowboy audience. Ironically, although they were right in the middle of cowboy country, they of course as prisoners would have had very little opportunity to explore it. No doubt, some of the western images came from American movies while others the artists may have seen in books.
German POWs
With the surrender of Italy in 1944, the Italian prisoners were quietly shipped out by early spring. Although the POW camp was vacant and deactivated in July, 1944, it was quickly reactivated a month later to prepare for incoming Germans prisoners. By the first of October, 1944, over 2000 German prisoners resided at the camp; the numbers peaked the following summer at 3,011.
The Germans were a less homogeneous group than the Italians, they ranged in age from 14 to 80 years old. Although the majority of German prisoners were characterized as "cooperative" by their guards, a number of hardcore Nazis made up part of the population and caused trouble for the guards by repeatedly cutting through fences to other compounds and harassing their more docile comrades. Camp censors put a halt to their camp newsletter after only two issues due to its rabid Nazi propaganda. A less political paper replaced it and ran for twenty issues.
Prisoners spent time in the camp library or became involved in sports. Others staged plays and concerts or the entertainment of not only their fellow prisoners but the public was invited as well. Artisans among the POWs sketched portraits and made such handcrafted items as shelves and decorative plaques which they glued together using dried cottage cheese from their meals. A number of these items were gifts to Douglas community members and are on display at the Douglas Pioneer Museum.
Like the Italian prisoners before them, the German POWs also provided thousands of hours in agricultural labor for which they were paid daily wages of $4.00. They received one-half of their wages in script they could use in the post exchange; the other half was set aside until their release from the camp. Some thrifty prisoners returned to their homeland with over $500 in savings.
POWs worked in the surrounding area and also were assigned to crop harvest crews in Clearmont, Wheatland, Basin, and Lovell. Others spent time as timber men in nearby Esterbrook and as far away as Ryan's Park in the Medicine Bow Mountains. Guards always accompanied the internees although security might become lax on the job site as escape attempts appeared to be less of a threat away from the camp.
Escape attempts
There were several minor escape attempts at the camp. Guards found two prisoners hiding in a haystack down river from the camp, both clothed in six pairs of G.I. winter underwear. Three Germans hid their escape by the clever use of paper dummies that their comrades propped up during roll call. Another group of escapees made it south about twenty-five miles where they hid out for a week until their capture when they inquired what state they were now in.
Camp closing
By August 1945, as the war wound down, the regional camp commander announced the end of POW labor and that prisoners would now be prepared for repatriation. The Douglas camp gradually released the prisoners beginning in November, 1945, until February 1, 1946, when the camp officially closed. Undoubtedly, there were mixed feelings on both sides as friendships between the prisoners and members of the local community had been forged in spite of being on opposite sides of the war. As a testament to the strength of those ties, correspondence continued for many years between former prisoners and Douglas residents. Overseas visits by Wyomingites and return visits to Douglas by the former POWs also cemented the bond they shared during the war.
The deserted Douglas camp became the property of the War Assets Administration, a federal agency established to dispose of surplus property and provide lumber and other materials for temporary government-approved housing programs. Federal agencies and local governments were given first priority to acquire surplus buildings before they were scrapped. Converse County purchased the camp hospital; the Community Country Club acquired the Officers Club; and School District 17 acquired fifteen buildings and 163 acres for an experimental farm which operated until 1969. Buildings purchased by a lumber company still stand south of the Officers Club. Spiegelberger Lumber and Building Company of Laramie dismantled 137 buildings.
By the 1980s, the site of the former POW camp had become unrecognizable. Interstate 25 cut through the camp, and businesses, housing subdivisions, two large mobile home parks, and a new school building covered many of the 687 acres that once made up the Douglas camp. Only a few local people fought to keep the history of the camp from fading forever.
Among those few were members of the Douglas Lodge #15, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. The Odd Fellows purchased the Officers Club from the Douglas Junior Chamber of Commerce in 1963 for $5,000. Over the years, the local I.O.O.F. lodge has maintained the building and taken pains to protect the unique murals painted by three Italian prisoners of war.
In 2015, the Officers' club became a Wyoming State Historic Site and is now maintained by WY State Parks, Historic Sites and Trails, a Division of WY State Parks and Cultural Resources. The Officers' Club is open to the public during the summer months only June–August and on specific days.
The listing of the former Officer's Club of the Douglas Internment Camp on the National Register of Historic Places is a tribute to those dedicated to its preservation today and to the thousands from the past who made a wartime home at the camp.
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war.
The Wyoming State Capitol is located in the city of Cheyenne. Cheyenne is the seat of government for the U.S. state of Wyoming, also hosting the workspace for the governor, and his staff; Mark Gordon. Built between 1886 and 1890, the capitol is located in Cheyenne and contains the chambers of the Wyoming State Legislature as well as the office of the Governor of Wyoming. It was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1987. The Capitol underwent an extensive three-year renovation and reopened to the public on July 10, 2019.
Fort D. A. Russell, also known as Fort Francis E. Warren, Francis E. Warren Air Force Base and Fort David A. Russell, was a post and base of operations for the United States Army, and later the Air Force, located in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The fort had been established in 1867 to protect workers for the Union Pacific Railroad. It was named in honor of David Allen Russell, a Civil War general killed at the Battle of Opequon. In 1930, the fort's name was changed to Fort Francis E. Warren. In 1949, it became Francis E. Warren Air Force Base.
Fort D. A. Russell is the name of an American military installation near Marfa, Texas, that was active from 1911 to 1946. It is named for David Allen Russell, a Civil War general killed at the Battle of Opequon, September 19, 1864.
The Utah prisoner of war massacre took place after the end of World War II in Europe at midnight on July 8, 1945, at a German and Italian prisoner-of-war camp in Salina, Utah. Nine German prisoners of war were murdered and nineteen prisoners were wounded by American private Clarence V. Bertucci, who was on active duty in the camp. After a night out, Bertucci returned to camp around midnight to assume his night duty at the guard tower. Bertucci subsequently loaded the .30-caliber M1917 Browning machine gun on the tower and fired at the tents of the sleeping prisoners. After the massacre, he revealed his motivation was that, "he had hated Germans, so he had killed Germans." Six Germans were immediately killed, two died in Salina's hospital, one died in an army hospital, and nineteen were wounded.
Fort Douglas was established in October 1862, during the American Civil War, as a small military garrison about three miles east of Salt Lake City, Utah. Its purpose was to protect the overland mail route and telegraph lines along the Central Overland Route. It was officially closed in 1991 pursuant to BRAC action. A small portion of the fort remains in active military use as the Stephen A. Douglas Armed Forces Reserve Center, although it is expected the reserve center will be relocated in the next few years, after the state of Utah provided funds for the purpose in 2023.
Camp Concordia was a prisoner-of-war camp that operated from 1943–1945. Its location is two miles north and one mile east of Concordia, Kansas. The camp was used primarily for German Army prisoners during World War II who were captured in battles that took place in Africa.
Camp Ruston was one of the largest prisoner-of-war camps in the United States during World War II, with 4,315 prisoners at its peak in October 1943. Camp Ruston served as the "base camp" and had 8 smaller work branch camps associated to it. Camp Ruston included three large, separated compounds for POWs, a full, modern hospital compound, and a compound for the American personnel. One of the POW compounds, located in the far northwestern part of the camp was designated for POW officers. The officer's compound's barracks were constructed to house a lesser number of POWs affording more privacy and room for the officers. The enlisted men's barracks were designed to house a maximum of 50 POWs in two rows of bunks that ran along each side. POW latrines were separate buildings located at the end of each compound.
Harperley POW Camp 93 is a surviving purpose-built World War II Prisoner of War (PoW) camp built to accommodate up to 1,400 inmates at Fir Tree near Crook, County Durham in the northeast of England. A work camp for low risk PoWs, it was built on a hillside overlooking Weardale and across the valley from Hamsterley Forest. It was built, initially, in 1943 by Italian PoWs to similar plans of other existing Ministry of War Standard Camps of World War II in Britain and was typical of many military installations around the country. It is the main camp for a number of satellite camps, also numbered 93. Nearby Bishop Auckland used Harperley PoWs and Oaklands Emergency Hospital was another installation numbered Camp 93.
Members of the German military were interned as prisoners of war in the United States during World War I and World War II. In all, 425,000 German prisoners lived in 700 camps throughout the United States during World War II.
The Centennial Work Center in Medicine Bow National Forest near Centennial, Wyoming was built in 1938. It was built to replace the nearby Centennial Ranger Station. It was designed by USDA Forest Service, Region 2 in USFS rustic architecture and served as a government office. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its architecture. The listing included three contributing buildings, a bunkhouse, a combined office and bunkhouse, and a garage, on 5 acres (2.0 ha).
Building 98 at Fort D. A. Russell is the historic US army base bachelor officer quarters, officers club, and grand ballroom near Marfa, Texas; it was active from 1911 to 1946. Building 98 is Located at Fort David A. Russell's central fort complex. It is a project of the International Woman's Foundation and it is the home of the World War II German prisoners of war POW murals.
Grizedale Hall was a large country house at Grizedale, Hawkshead, in the Lake District in Cumbria, England. After two earlier Grizedale Halls had preceded, it was built anew in 1905 in the style of Gothic Revival architecture. During World War II it became No 1 Prisoner-of-war camp to hold German officers and was finally pulled down in 1957.
Camp Opelika was a World War II era prisoner of war (POW) camp in Opelika, Alabama. Its construction began in September 1942 and it shut down in September 1945. The first prisoners, captured by the British, were part of General Erwin Rommel's feared Africa Corps. It held approximately 3,000 German prisoners at any one time.
Large numbers of German prisoners of war were held in Britain between the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 and late 1948. Their numbers reached a peak of around 400,000 in 1946, and then began to fall when repatriation began. The experiences of these prisoners differed in certain important respects from those of captured German servicemen held by other nations. The treatment of the captives, though strict, was generally humane, and fewer prisoners died in British captivity than in other countries. The British government also introduced a programme of re-education, which was intended to demonstrate to the POWs the evils of the Nazi regime, while promoting the advantages of democracy. Some 25,000 German prisoners remained in the United Kingdom voluntarily after being released from prisoner of war status.
The Civilian Conservation Corps-Prisoner of War Recreation Hall is a historic building located in Eldora, Iowa, United States. Known as Camp Flying Goose, the Civilian Conservation Corps' (CCC) Company 1755 made Eldora their home base in 1933. They constructed this building that year for their use as a barracks while they worked on projects in the area, which included building Upper Pine Lake in Pine Lake State Park. CCC Company 1752, the Erosioners, replaced them two years later, and they built many of the facilities in the park. With the start of World War II, the CCC left the camp. The National Youth Association used the camp from 1940 to 1942.
The Camp Breckinridge Non-Commissioned Officers' Club, at 1116 N. Village Rd. in Morganfield, Kentucky, was built in 1942 for the U.S. Army by contractor Struck Construction. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
The Italian Service Units or ISUs were military units composed of Italian prisoners of war (POWs) that served with the Allies during World War II against Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan from May 1944 to October 1945. The armed forces of the United States captured many Italian soldiers during the North African campaign Operation Torch, which started in November 1942 and sent 51,000 of them to the United States. After the signing of the armistice by the Badoglio government in Italy on September 8, 1943, and with Pietro Badoglio and the Kingdom of the South officially declaring war on Nazi Germany on October 13, 1943, the Americans began to see the POWs as potential allies. The capture of Rome by the Allies on June 4, 1944, motivated many POWs to change sides. About 90% joined Italian Service Units, which operated in the United States and overseas.
Ryan Park Camp is a historical site, 1 mile (1.6 km) east of the community of Ryan Park, Wyoming in Carbon County, Wyoming. The camp opened in 1930 as a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp during the Great Depression. Ryan Park Camp is at 8,009 feet (2,441 m) elevation in the Snowy Range of Wyoming's Rocky Mountains in the Medicine Bow National Forest on Wyoming Highway 130. Civilian Conservation Corps was supervised by the United States Forest Service. Civilian Conservation Corps camp closed in 1939. From 1942 to 1945 Ryan Park Camp operated as World War 2 Prisoner of war (POW) camp. Today there are no remains of the camp. The site is now a United States Forest Service public campground. A historical maker is at the entrance to the campground. Ryan Park Camp is named after Tom T. Ryan, who in 1879 founded a sawmill on the site on the western slopes of the Medicine Bow Mountains.
Bear, Kenneth L. Unpublished paper 'Recalling the Sagebrush Kriegies: Italian and German Prisoners of War Interned at Camp Douglas, 1943-1946'
Douglas Pioneer Museum files. This excellent and extremely thorough document includes many newspaper clippings of the period from the two Douglas newspapers about the POW Camp and its impact on the local community.
Douglas Pioneer Museum, Douglas, Wyoming: Douglas POW Camp files.
Larson, T. A. Wyoming's War Years: 1941 - 1945. Reprint edition,
Cheyenne, Wyoming Historical Foundation, 1993.
Leonard, Peg Layton. West of Yesteryear. Johnson Publishing Co., Boulder, Co, 1976.
Wasch, Diane Shaw, Perry Busch, Keith Landreth, et al., James Glass, "World War II and the U. S. Army Mobilization Program: A History of 700 and 800 Series Cantonment Construction"; Legacy Resources Management Program, United States Department of Defense; United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Cultural Resources.
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