"Highly Valued Employees"
A Digital Exhibit about the Sioux Ordnance Depot's World War II Employees
During World War II, the nation faced a serious labor shortage. People were needed for military service, agriculture, newly-built defense industries, and essential daily businesses and services. The demand for labor created problems for places across the US, including Cheyenne County.
In early March 1942, the War Department announced the construction of the Sioux Ordnance Depot near Sidney, Nebraska. Almost immediately, this ammunition storage site experienced the labor shortage plaguing the nation. With all of the war’s demands, Cheyenne County did not have enough people to fully staff the Depot.
The Depot’s Commanding Officer Harold J. Preble worked out several agreements to recruit employees. By the end of World War II, the Depot employed several historically underrepresented groups of people.
The Depot’s employees included women, African Americans, Japanese Americans, Italian and German prisoners of war, individuals with physical disabilities and more. Although the nation-wide labor shortage made their employment necessary, all of these people became “highly valued employees” at the Depot because of their contributions to the World War II war effort.[1]
Using government documents, photographs, oral histories, and the Cheyenne County Historical Society’s Sioux Army Depot Collection, this exhibit presents the memories of former employees, their descendants, and community members through the lenses of gender, race and ethnicity, and ability to highlight the contributions of the Sioux Ordnance Depot’s highly-valued World War II employees from 1942 to 1946.
Endnotes
[1] Larry L. Mahlman said in his history of the Depot that the formerly incarcerated Japanese Americans, the nisei, “became an indispensable part of the community and proved to be highly valued employees.” This exhibit uses the term “highly valued” for all of the World War II Depot employees. For more information, see Larry L. Mahlman, "History of Sioux Army Depot: Sioux Army Depot, Sidney, Nebraska, 1942-1967," December 1966, Sioux Army Depot Collection, Cheyenne County Historical Society, Fort Sidney Museum, Sidney, Nebraska, 28.
Cover Image by Tatiana Moore Painter, March 2023.
Published: January 15, 2025 Last Updated: January 15, 2025
Author: Tatiana Moore Painter, UNK Graduate Student