Wednesday Study Club takes trip to Camp Hearne

The Wednesday Study Club took its annual field trip March 12 to Hearne to visit the restored railroad depot and the site of Camp Hearne where prisoners of war were held during World War II and to eat lunch at the Pony Express café located in the old Post Office building.

Attending were Carol Stock, Linda Bernsen, Mary Ann Mitchell, Pat Runcie, Diane Pagel, Norma Burns, Annette Engel, Ann Sonntag and Beth Allen.

Both sites visited were extremely interesting. Bob and Jan Baston were the docents for the railroad depot. He filled the club members in on the history of the railroads as they pertained to Hearne and his wife on the various pieces of memorabilia.

In 1848 the Galveston and Red River Railroad Company was chartered, although construction was not begun until several years later. In 1856 it was reorganized as the Houston and Texas Central. Later an east-west rail line was built, and they crossed at the site of present-day Hearne. At the time of its decommissioning the depot served the Missouri Pacific and the Southern Pacific railroads and the rails still cross in Hearne.

Hearne began as a railroad town and at one time had an icing station and a rail car repair facility. At the icing station box cars carrying perishables had their ice replaced as there was no refrigeration then. The depot at the time the city acquired it was across the tracks and the highway from its present location, and it took three trucks to move the building.

Short rail lines run beside the building. The depot is packed with model train layouts and memorabilia from the railroad itself. Former workers have donated lanterns, tools and other items from when they worked on it.

Camp Hearne was quite diGerent. The only things left of the original camp are the concrete pads for the many buildings. Today a modern version of a camp building houses the displays and a truncated replica of one of the guard towers stands nearby. Nevertheless, Cathy and Susan, the two docents there, created a picture of what life was like for the prisoners. Most of the men housed here came from Rommel’s Afrika Corps. Because the Geneva Convention stipulated that POWs should be housed in conditions like the conditions where they were captured, most of the 500 POW camps were in the South.

Prisoners were fed and housed in the same manner as our troops were. They were paid a daily wage in script which could only be used in the camp canteen. They were housed in barracks and ate in the mess hall. Farmers in the area who needed hands could employ the prisoners to harvest their crops.

On display in the museum building were articles and art created by the prisoners while they were at the camp and much of it was quite impressive.

After the war was over and the atrocities committed by the Nazis were exposed, the United States quit adhering strictly to the Geneva Convention and worked to “re-educate” the POWs before they were returned to Germany, attempting to instill in them an appreciation for democracy.