United States Senator Deb Fischer’s Weekly Column
This August, I visited the city of North Platte for a tour with North Platte’s chamber office. North Platte is known for many things, and chief among them are its status as a railroad town and the home of Buffalo Bill. As we drove through the city, I saw its industrial area and new housing subdivisions. As the tour continued, we came across the Downtown Canteen District, a title that holds special meaning for people across our state.
During World War II, this small, West Central Nebraska town was famous for the North Platte Canteen. In 1941, a few local area women began bringing desserts to the soldiers stopping at North Platte’s train station. Soon, the good deeds of these women grew into a larger affair: a waiting room at the train station filled with sandwiches, coffee, and cakes donated by people across the surrounding area.
From Christmas Day 1941 to April 1946, these Nebraskans met every train that came into the North Platte station with food and friendship. Each day, up to 32 trains rolled into North Platte, carrying thousands of uniformed personnel. As World War II raged on, donations and support from the communities surrounding North Platte poured in. The North Platte Canteen received around 40,000 cookies, 30,000 hard-boiled eggs, 6,900 birthday cakes, and 2,800 pounds of sandwich meat during just one month.
Over the years of World War II, more than six million soldiers came through the North Platte train station. Each one was met with caring and friendship at the Canteen. The people of North Platte gave encouragement to our country’s bravest. They provided some light to those headed to the front lines during one of our world’s darkest times. They gave our soldiers a small, but significant, taste of home and of hope.
It was an incredible volunteer effort, one that deserves recognition. Volunteers raised more than $137,000, worth more than $2 million today, to support the North Platte Canteen. And more than 55,000 people, nearly all of them women, chipped into running it. One of those women was my own mother, Florence Strobel. My mom moved to North Platte and taught kindergarten for several months during the fall of 1944, and she proudly served among the North Platte Canteen volunteers. She’d often tell wonderful stories of her time volunteering and the people she’d met at the train station.
In honor of the thousands of Nebraskans who served our troops at the North Platte Canteen, I reintroduced my North Platte Canteen Congressional Gold Medal Act last month along with Senator Ricketts. Congressman Smith led introduction of the legislation in the House along with Congressmen Flood and Bacon. This bill would award a collective Congressional Gold Medal to all of the individuals and communities who volunteered at or donated to the North Platte Canteen. This is the highest honor Congress can give civilians, and no one deserves it more than those who gave our soldiers hope to hold onto during the war.
As Nebraskans, we still remember those who served as part of the North Platte Canteen. North Platte’s Downtown Canteen District shows us that much—the city of North Platte has honored the Canteen by immortalizing it in the downtown area. The kindness and good deeds Nebraskans showed during World War II are a picture of the values we still hold dear in our state. I look forward to passing my North Platte Canteen Congressional Gold Medal Act to recognize and remember those who came before us in a new way.
Thank you for participating in the democratic process. I look forward to visiting with you again next week.
