"Everybody There was from Someplace Else"
Although the Depot’s leadership tried to recruit as many local workers as possible, the population of the county could not fill all of the open positions. The Depot’s Personnel Division started recruiting outside the area. This recruitment brought a lot of people to Cheyenne County who were not from here.
Carl Farmer, who grew up in Ordville, the Depot's housing area, remembered the uniqueness of this fact. In the clip below, he talks about his memories of the diverse neighborhood.
Farmer_Multicultral Interview.mp3"We always thought it was kind of unique because everybody there was
from someplace else, and so, we had multicultural people." - Carl Farmer
The Personnel Division's recruitment also led to people of varying racial and ethnic identities finding employment at the Depot. Among these groups were African American soldiers, Italian and German prisoners of war (POWs), and formerly incarcerated Japanese Americans.* All of these employees became highly-valued laborers at the Depot.
Many of these racially and ethnically diverse employees continued working at the Depot after World War II ended. Their employment led to additional opportunities for more racially and ethnically diverse groups in the post-war era.
Click on the images below to learn more about the contributions of these three groups of employees to the World War II effort at the Depot!
Endnotes
*There is also evidence to suggest that many Latinx employees worked at the Depot. However, due to the time constraints of this project, this exhibit focuses mainly on the three groups mentioned.
Published: January 15, 2025 Last Updated: January 15, 2025
Author: Tatiana Moore Painter, UNK Graduate Student