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View Full Version : South Carolina town works to preserve a piece of Marine Corps history



Shaffer
07-11-02, 09:03 AM
YEMASSEE, S.C. - Near the parade grounds at the Parris Island Marine Corps
Recruit Depot, a sign arching over the road reads simply: "Where The
Difference Begins."
But for decades, and for tens of thousands of Marines, it all began about 35
miles to the northwest in Yemassee, a now-sleepy railroad junction where the
mayor and the townsfolk hope to reclaim a piece of the Corps' history.
Mayor J.L. Goodwin, a former Marine drill instructor, is heading the effort
to preserve and move a building that for decades served as a reception
station and barracks for recruits reporting to Parris Island by train.
"I see it as a Marine, a big part not only of Yemassee history but of Marine
Corps history," says Goodwin, whose first encounter with the Marines was at
the barracks as a green recruit in 1954. In the early 1960s, though, he
began greeting recruits there as a drill instructor.
"You talk to anybody who passed through the barracks, they will tell you
this was their first encounter with the Marines - and we tried not to
disappoint them," he says with a wry smile. "They had the benefit of our
charm."
Yemassee was a recruit receiving station as far back as World War I.
A picture from that era shows Marines standing by a table in front of a row
of tents. Recruits arrived by train and would be processed. They would then
take another train to Port Royal before boarding boats or barges for Parris
Island.
In 1942, the barracks building was leased by the Marines from the Atlantic
Coast Line Railroad.
During World War II, about 250,000 recruits passed through Yemassee. A 1942
picture essay in Life magazine by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt shows the
junction bustling with steam engines and crowded with recruits.
The article described the town as "a railroad junction not too big to be
confusing, not too small to be trivial."
The barracks closed in 1965 because of the decline in rail passenger
traffic. The structure was sold and moved up the street; the weathered
yellow clapboard building now houses a furniture store.
Walking inside, there's evidence of the half-terrified recruits who came
through on their first day as Marines. The group showers still work and the
flag pole still stands next to the building, although it's now used as a
mast for a television antenna.
The one major change is a brick facade that was added to the front.
Recruits who arrived too late at night to catch a train or, in later years,
a bus to Parris Island would spend their first night as Marines in the
barracks.
Goodwin recalls there was no delay in getting them accustomed to Marine
life.
"We'd get them off the train and into the barracks and process the orders,"
he says. "We'd do work parties and cut the grass. They would be in bed by 10
p.m., and the next morning they would be up by 6, and we would feed them,
and we'd cut the grass and pick up the trash. That grass got cut every day."

Now the Yemassee Historic Association is working to raise the estimated
$280,000 needed to acquire the building, move it back to its original site
and outfit it with bunks and desks, just as it appeared a half-century ago.
The owners are willing to let the town have the building as long as
officials provide a replacement of the same size. Goodwin says the CSX
railroad also is willing to sell the original barracks site not far from the
tracks.
Organizers are contacting Marine and veterans' organizations nationwide and
hope the project, expected to be finished by the fall of 2003, will spur
tourism in the tiny town of 800 that's home to the annual Yemassee Shrimp
Festival.
Goodwin envisions a small Marine museum in a nearby existing building. He
says that several times a week Marine veterans pass through asking about the
barracks, not expecting to see it, but just to see where it was.
He says more than 40,000 people a day pass through Yemassee on Interstate
95, the main route between New York and Florida.
"Of that 40-plus-thousand, there's a lot of old Marines."