thedrifter
12-31-05, 06:43 PM
Bitterness lingers from land evictions at start of World War II
JOHN HUTHMACHER
Hastings Tribune
HASTINGS, Neb. - Hastings resident Walt Miller did not live in town when the U.S. government used eminent domain to confiscate 232 farms in and around Hastings for use as a Naval Ammunition Depot in 1942.
But Miller, who taught at Central Community College for 30 years and now gives talks on the NAD and its impact on the city, knows that the wounds left by those forced acquisitions ache on.
The 76 square miles of property in south-central Nebraska were obtained by the government for military use just months after America entered World War II.
"A lot of these farms were in those families since they had been homesteaded," Miller said. "Parents, grandparents and so on had come out here in the 1800s and worked the sod for the first time. People had become very attached to their land."
In a matter of months, however, those bonds were severed by the reluctant exchange of deeds and an unyielding military presence that left little semblance of what once existed.
Following his NAD talks, Miller often visits with relatives still affected by the takeovers. To many of them, just knowing their loved ones were forced to walk away from their lives work for minimal compensation is difficult to digest.
"They has just come through 10 years of drought and depression in the 1930s and most of these people were working night and day just trying to hang on to their farms so the bank would not take them over," Miller said. "They didn't have any crops. They were hanging on by their fingernails."
Crops were good in 1940 and 1941. But then the government came in and told the landowners they had 10 to 30 days to leave the land. Many didn't know where to go, Miller said.
As compensation, they were given an average of about $60 per acre - less than half what the land was worth at the time. None of the evicted farmers ever got land back directly from the federal government, Miller said.
Introduced on June 10, 1942, the plant remained open until June 30, 1966, serving as one of the U.S. Navy's primary ammunition stations for 24 years. It supplied 40 percent of all ammunition used by the Navy and Marines during World War II and the Korean War.
Once the NAD was shut down, the property was turned over to the federal government to be disbursed as surplus property. It was claimed by the Department of Agriculture, the National Guard and Armed Reserves, and a corporation called Hadco.
While the necessity of the NADs role in the war effort was never questioned, its hasty arrival and aggressive takeover nevertheless left many Hastings farmers scrambling to survive.
Their stories still sting when retold.
Miller remembered one man who told a story of seeing his father cry for the first time when he lost his farm.
"Several generations later, people are still bitter over this," Miller said. "Very bitter."
Ellie
JOHN HUTHMACHER
Hastings Tribune
HASTINGS, Neb. - Hastings resident Walt Miller did not live in town when the U.S. government used eminent domain to confiscate 232 farms in and around Hastings for use as a Naval Ammunition Depot in 1942.
But Miller, who taught at Central Community College for 30 years and now gives talks on the NAD and its impact on the city, knows that the wounds left by those forced acquisitions ache on.
The 76 square miles of property in south-central Nebraska were obtained by the government for military use just months after America entered World War II.
"A lot of these farms were in those families since they had been homesteaded," Miller said. "Parents, grandparents and so on had come out here in the 1800s and worked the sod for the first time. People had become very attached to their land."
In a matter of months, however, those bonds were severed by the reluctant exchange of deeds and an unyielding military presence that left little semblance of what once existed.
Following his NAD talks, Miller often visits with relatives still affected by the takeovers. To many of them, just knowing their loved ones were forced to walk away from their lives work for minimal compensation is difficult to digest.
"They has just come through 10 years of drought and depression in the 1930s and most of these people were working night and day just trying to hang on to their farms so the bank would not take them over," Miller said. "They didn't have any crops. They were hanging on by their fingernails."
Crops were good in 1940 and 1941. But then the government came in and told the landowners they had 10 to 30 days to leave the land. Many didn't know where to go, Miller said.
As compensation, they were given an average of about $60 per acre - less than half what the land was worth at the time. None of the evicted farmers ever got land back directly from the federal government, Miller said.
Introduced on June 10, 1942, the plant remained open until June 30, 1966, serving as one of the U.S. Navy's primary ammunition stations for 24 years. It supplied 40 percent of all ammunition used by the Navy and Marines during World War II and the Korean War.
Once the NAD was shut down, the property was turned over to the federal government to be disbursed as surplus property. It was claimed by the Department of Agriculture, the National Guard and Armed Reserves, and a corporation called Hadco.
While the necessity of the NADs role in the war effort was never questioned, its hasty arrival and aggressive takeover nevertheless left many Hastings farmers scrambling to survive.
Their stories still sting when retold.
Miller remembered one man who told a story of seeing his father cry for the first time when he lost his farm.
"Several generations later, people are still bitter over this," Miller said. "Very bitter."
Ellie