Volume 8 , Issue 7

Termination of WWII POW Camps...

This is a view of what is left of Alva's camp water tower & VFW Post. This military looking building and the old water tower to the left are the "Old" officers Quarters & Club. AND... is now used as the VFW Post & Mexican Restaurant.

The Quarters of American Personnel and camp administrative buildings were north of the POW's compounds and East of Washington Avenue. All buildings were considered temporary and constructed of wood in those days during WWII. This building that is left was the Officers Club and Quarters and stood across the street and East of the prisoners barracks/compounds.

The POW's were shipped home after VE Day, but 2,192 remained at the Alva POW camp on September 16, 1945. The bulk of them were shipped out October 1, 1945 then there were only 45 remaining. September 20, 1945, Col. H. S. Richardson (camp commander) announced the camp would be closed. On October 15, 1945, all POW's were gone. November 15, 1945, Capt. Pat Arnim (final camp commander) closed camp. A large number of guards at the Alva POW camp have connections with Alva to this day. Some were from Alva before the war and others married women from the Alva area and settled down there after WWII.

The VFW Post purchased the Officers Club in 1946 with four persons (Wm. T. Crenshaw, Wm "Bill" Stites, Charlie Trenfield, and Mr. Ensor) each donating $200 for an $800 downpayment. Legal description of the property sold was the NE/2 NW/4, Section 35-TWP27-Range 14, Woods County (approx. 40 Acres).

Over the years the VFW land diminished to 8-Acres. At different times, there was a Supper Club housed in the VFW building and a Mexican Restaurant at the present time. Now the fairgrounds; a softball field; a weed grown racetrack (used by the fairgrounds and local horse enthusiasts) occupy the grounds with the POW chimney/smokestack (alleged hospital smokestack) and the concrete water tower. Little else remains of the past remembrances of Alva's German Prisoner of War camp era between June 1942 thru November 1945, except this view looking South down Washington Ave.

The Alva POW Camp was built to house five guard companies. The army acquired the prime farm land for the camp from local farmers in the Alva area. The North 320-Acres was acquired from the Wiebener family and the South 320-Acres from the Peterman family. After the war, neither family was given chance to regain their land. At the termination of the war, the POW camp was vacated and the land turned over to the City of Alva for control purposes. The deed transfer specified that the land would be used primarily for an airport. However, none of the land could be sold in as much as it still belonged to the US Government. Buildings were sold and all except one of the houses (VFW Post) were removed.

The Buildings... covered less than half of the north Section and were sold and removed after WWII. The land not used for the camp was left under cultivation.

The Recreation Hall of the Alva POW camp was moved to Kiowa, Kansas after the war and used by Kiowa American Legion as a meeting hall.

One of the buildings can be found on Ronald McMurphy's homeplace located off of the 5th Street Road (East/West blacktop road) connecting the Dacoma blacktop road (North/South blacktop road) to Cherokee, Oklahoma. The 5th Street road runs West out of Cherokee towards Alva and Dacoma.

Then there was the building that housed the Hilltop Gas & Grocery, located 11 miles west of Alva, Oklahoma. It was one of those Alva POW WWII Camp barracks. Leslie and Golda "Goldie" Lyon owned and ran the Hilltop gas and grocery and motor shop from 1946 to 1970 where later they did motor rewiring jobs that came into the shop. Today if you drive west out of Alva it would require your imagination to see what might have been. There is just a grass, fenced pasture with a gravel pull-off area with a view looking down the hill, east towards Alva. We found it very interesting to learn that in the old days... that the reasons stations along highway 64 were at the top of the hills were because the old cars were usually steaming by the time they got to the top and needed water.

900 block of Flynn Ave, Alva, OK... Another WWII POW barrack was moved into the middle of the 900 block of W. Flynn Street, in Alva, Oklahoma. It sets as apartments at the present, on the north side of the street, approximately a half block west of the Middle School (where the Old Jr. High School used to be).

11th & Center Alva... OK There was another old POW barracks moved to the northeast corner of Center & Eleventh Street in Alva, Oklahoma, used for small apartments.

Another barrack building found a new home on E. Flynn and was used as a storage building.

There was also a building moved down to Waynoka and turned into a "Beer Joint", but it was torn down and that is where the POW's painted murals were discovered, removed and put permanently in the Santa Fe Depot Museum in Waynoka, Oklahoma and the Cherokee Strip Museum in Alva.

The home that Rod Murrow's grandparents owned in Dacoma (one block south, one block east of Whittet's Cowboy Grill, just across the street west of the baseball diamond) was one of the barracks buildings from the POW camp

The Freedom United Methodist Church is actually TWO of the buildings, joined together in a 'T' shape, though another addition was built along the west side of the facility in more recent years.

Southeast of Alva, Oklahoma on the Harold Fox farm, in Alfalfa County, was a home with one of the POW compound barracks. It was located 3-miles south of the Ashley Elevator and 1/4-mile East. It burned down about 8 to 10 years ago.

If this NW Okie remembers correctly, West of Washington Ave., South of a road there were some barracks left left behind and used by the fairgrounds for the county fair when this writer was just a young girl, in her pre-teen years, in the Alva school system. Those buildings have since been torn down and replaced by race tracks and metal buildings (located in the North part)that sprang up West of Washington Ave.

If anyone out there has any "Old" or "New" photos of the Old POW buildings that came from the Alva POW Camp after World War II, please send us a copy to share with everyone. We would love to share it in The OkieLegacy.

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