quote:
Here's what I had on VT about it a while back:
What's VT?
Here's the Google Maps linkOn the Google Map aerial photo, the water tower is the circle on the lower right. You can barely make out it's shadow to the NW of the circle. The chapel is in the upper right, just off County Road 507. There are a few abandoned foundations near the water tower, and last time I was there, there were some old barbed-wire covered corner posts from the compound. The structure NNE of the water tower is an above-ground concrete swimming pool, apparently built for the guards.
We discussed this site
on an earlier thread so I won't repost my photos, though there are some there I took of the site.
I also have a short length of barbed wire from the camp. There are rolls and rolls of it there, I guess I ought to check with ebay about selling it.
If you scroll a little to the west, this photo puts the water tower in the lower right of the photo. This area looks really strange to me. There's no reason a farm would look like that. I'm guessing it's some remnant of the camp, perhaps the main entrance?
The prisoners were Italian, and they were often used on work details on area farms. Many formed friendships with the residents of the German community of Umbarger, near Canyon. After the war, and before they were sent home, they painted frescoes and carved an altar for the Catholic church there.
Labor was in short supply outside the camp, food in short supply in it. The prisoners were usually well fed by the farm wives, and guards would look the other way when the prisoners smuggled food back into their comrades. Supposedly the guards would use their rifles to shoot the occasional rabbit that was also smuggled back for the communal cookpot.
Prisoners helped build concrete grain elevators in Happy, Texas, which are still in use. They were granted permission to use surplus concrete and that's what the prisoner's chapel is made of.
[This message has been edited by CanyonAg77 (edited 2/6/2007 11:05a).]