North Platte Canteen

This new edition features a new cover and a new foreword detailing recent events regarding the Canteen. Just 10 days after Pearl Harbor, the residents of North Platte, Neb., learned that their own Company D, Nebraska National Guard, which had been training in Arkansas, was going to pass through the city en route to the West Coast.

About 500 family members and friends hurried to the Union Pacific Railroad station with cookies, candy, cakes and cigarettes. After a long wait, a troop train rumbled into the station - with a unit from the Kansas National Guard. The residents were disappointed until someone in the crowd said, Well, what are we waiting for "Welcome to our city, sons, and here's a little something for you." They then passed out to these boys the gifts they had arranged for their own.

This was the beginning of the North Platte Canteen. Every day, from 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers, sailors and marines visited the North Platte Canteen in the Union Pacific station. During a 10-minute stop, they were supplied with coffee, sandwiches and cigarettes, given a handful of current magazines and sent on their way, warmed not only by the hot coffee but by the smiles and friendly greetings of the busy canteen workers.

North Platte Canteen highlights what still persists as one of the most endearing examples of gratitude expressed toward those who have served in Americas defense. There are few train pictures in this book, it is mostly about the people of the time and shows the locals and the troops getting together for a short time during World War Two.

South Platte Press, softcover, 36 pages, 8.5 x 11 in., B&W photographs.