Fort Reno Bridge Construction

Construction of the POW camp at Fort Reno started in January of 1943 on 120 acres adjacent to the historic fort. Originally planned to hold Japanese POWs, the capture of over 250,000 German and Italian soldiers in north Tunisia prompted its conversion to primarily a German POW camp.

The federal government awarded the E.B. Construction Company of Oklahoma City the contract to build the necessary infrastructure to house the prisoners. Time constraints necessitated assembling a large contingent of workers. Up to 300 workers were on site at a given time, as the company’s contract specified the administration building had to be complete by March 1943, all prisoner barracks by March 15, and the remaining buildings by April 1 (El Reno American 1943a).

The retinue of 130 officers and guards stationed at the fort arrived shortly before the prisoners, who began to arrive via train on July 4, 1943 (Wilson 974; Barker 1997). The first group included “a trainload of prisoners from the Tunisian campaign” including 200 men and associated guards. Newspaper accounts from the period indicate they were to be used for “construction and maintenance work on the post” and that groups of 15 would eventually be available as farm labor (El Reno American 1943b).

Prisoner’s Work

Fort Reno’s POWs engaged in all types of work “according to the priority system” (Wilson 1974). The prisoners “provided a platoon of workers for assignment to details on the post” including “breeding and raising horses and mules for military service” (Wilson 1974). They also labored at industrial and construction sites outside the fort and assisted local farmers with the “endless tasks imposed by wartime crop-growing quotas” (Wilson 1974).

Early articles indicate the prisoners were already at work only a week or so after their arrival at the fort, including some on road and bridge construction projects. A newspaper article from July 5, 1943, indicated that though most of the new arrivals were still being processed, at least 60 prisoners had been “detailed to Fort Reno to assist in unloading road materials” while another group was potentially going to work for a “highway contractor constructing the new bridge near the prison entrance” (El Reno American 1943c). Their almost immediate assignment to road and associated infrastructure improvement suggests Bridge “A” may have constructed early during the history of the POW camp, though the inscription “P.o.W.22.5.1945” on the southern abutment of the bridge suggests it was at least completed by May 22, 1945.

Bridge “A”

Bridge “A” is a multi-span, concrete slab bridge completed in 1945 by the POWs. From the early 1900s through the 1930s, this bridge type was used predominantly for railroad bridges and over low water crossings (Thompson and Smulski 1939), and into the 1940s, it became a popular option for small highway bridges. Through World War II, concrete slab bridge designs were touted for their stiffness, resistance to shrinkage and temperature cycling, relative ease of construction, and cost-effectiveness (Parsons Brinckerhoff 2005).

The earliest concrete slab bridges were relatively short (not exceeding 30 feet in length), but as this type of bridge design became more popular into the 1930s and 1940s, continuous multi-span slab bridges were engineered to span longer distances (Thompson and Smulski 1939; Parsons Brinckerhoff 2005). Bridge “A” possesses three spans and measures approximately 48 feet in length. Multi-span slab bridges necessitate thicker, more massive slabs and additional supporting piers, which increases the cost of materials and may render this bridge type nonviable (Parsons Brinckerhoff 2005). However, slab bridge construction is relatively simple and inexpensive because it does not require extensive specialized formwork: as a result, concrete slab bridges could still be more economical to erect than other common bridge types of the era (Thompson and Smulski 1939), and the length of Bridge “A” is not an anomaly. Evidence of the formwork used in the construction of Bridge “A” may be observed in the texturing of the board-formed concrete and in small wooden remnants in and around the bridge itself.

Fort Reno Bridge “A” is a concrete cast-in-place flat-slab bridge that carries an unnamed road across Soap Suds South Creek. The board-formed concrete superstructure is supported by an all-concrete substructure that features angled wing walls, abutments, a continuous foundation or floor, and two disparate sets of 12’8” tall piers that divide the bridge into three equal-length spans.  

The northern and southern ends of the deck are supported by thick, 2’0” wide concrete abutments with angled wing walls. The southern abutment features a stamped emblem reading “P.o.W.22.5.1945,” with a horseshoe-shaped imprint above. The numbering indicates its date of construction: May 22, 1945.

The Fort Reno POW camp was deactivated in May of 1946. The first group of 750 prisoners were transferred out of Fort Reno in March of 1946. The last 50 of that group left Tuesday March 19 by train to Camp Shanks in New York where they boarded ships. Most were taken to France, where after a short stop at Camp Bolbeb, they marched several hours to a loading station and boarded freight trains to Germany. The last 369 POWs left Fort Reno by train on April 6, headed to Camp Shanks to begin their journey home (El Reno American 1946; Barker 1997). In 1947, the federal government transferred Fort Reno to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

REFERENCES

Bank of the Union of El Reno n.d. The Buildings at Historic Fort Reno. The Bank of the Union of El Reno, El Reno, Oklahoma.

Barker, Carolyn 1997  Fort Reno POW Camp. Privately published.

Burns & McDonnell 2016  Technical Recommendation Report: El Reno Bridge Repairs or Replacement. Prepared for the USDA Agricultural Research Service, College Station, Texas. Copies Available from Burns & McDonnell Engineering Company, Inc., Kansas City, Missouri.

Canadian County Historical Society n.d.  “German Prisoners of War” [scrapbook]. Canadian County Historical Society Museum, El Reno, Oklahoma.

El Reno American (Staff Writer)

1943a  “Work Starting at New Enemy Prison: Contract Let Wednesday to Oklahoma Contractor.” El Reno American, January 14, 1943.

1943b  “War Comes Nearer El Reno as German Prisoners Are Received at Internment Camp.” El Reno American, July 8,943.

1943c  “Nazi Prisoner Camp Filling Rapidly Now.” El Reno American, July 15, 1943.

1943d  “Takes Time to Get Prison Labor!” El Reno American, July 23, 1943.

1943e  “Treatment of War Prisoners in Internment Camp at Fort Reno Follows Rules Set Up by a Geneva Conference in Year of 1929.” El Reno American, August 1943.

1943f  “Prisoners Not to Blame for Milk Shortage.” El Reno American, August 12, 1943.

1943g  “Rumors Won’t Win the War--or Feed Our Children.” El Reno American, August 12, 1943.

1943h  “Germans in Internment Camp Here Welcome Offer of Religious Services.” El Reno American, August 19, 1943.

1943i  “More Prisoners Arrive: Trainload of Germans Received at Camp Here Monday.” El Reno American, September 2, 1943.

1943j  “Prisoner Convoys Here.” El Reno American, September 16, 1943.

1943k  “Warns of Cutting Prisoner Convoys: Patrolman Arrests Taxi Driver Who Ignored Rules of the Road.” El Reno American, September 16, 1943.

1943l  “Farm Labor Need is Critical in County: German Prisoner Labor is Not Available Here at Present.” El Reno American, October 7 ,943.

1945a  “Evidences of Coddling.” El Reno American, May 3, 1945.

1945b  “POW Camp Gets Alva Prisoners.” El Reno American, July 12, 945.

1946  “Fort Reno POW Camp to End Life May 10.” El Reno American, May 2, 1946.

1947a  “Fort Reno Will Sell Buildings.” El Reno American, January 2, 1947.

1947b  “Fort Reno Goes to Department of Agriculture.” El Reno American, January 23, 1947.

Gathright, Margaret 2004  “Re-education of German POWs.” New Plains Review Vol. No. 1. English Department of the Liberal Arts College of the University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, Oklahoma.

Harris, Brandy and Caitlyn Ewers 2018  Draft Field Documentation Package for Fort Reno POW Bridge (Bridge “A”), Canadian County, Oklahoma. LSY Architects and Laboratory Planners Project No. 16049.01. Copy on file at the Oklahoma History Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Historic Fort Reno [1943] “1940s World War II German Prisoner Camp at N.E. Corner of Fort Reno” [wall hanging]. Historic Fort Reno, El Reno, Oklahoma.

n.d.  “Chapel” [digital image]. Historic Fort Reno, accessed March 0, 2019, at  http://www.fortreno.org/tour-2/chapel-2/. 

Oklahoma City Times (Staff Writer)

1946  “Prisoners Shocked at German Horror Movies, Resent Charge They Too Are Responsible: Films Called Best Weapon in Bombarding Nazis with Democracy’s Way of Life.” Oklahoma City Times, March 5, 1946.

Oklahoma Historical Society Research Library 1946  Photograph 012.201.B1349.0713. Oklahoma Historical Society Research Library, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Parsons Brinckerhoff and Engineering and Industrial Heritage 2005  A Context for Common Historic Bridge Types. NCHRP Project 5-25, Task 15. Prepared for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, Washington, D.C.

Steelman, Danny 1983  “German Prisoners of War in America: Oklahoma’s Prisoner of War Operations during World War II.” The Oklahoma State Historical Review Vol. 4, Spring 1983. Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Thompson, Sanford E. and Edward Smulski 1939  Reinforced Concrete Bridges. John Wiley and Sons, New York, New York.

Wilson, Terry Paul 1974 The Afrika Korps in Oklahoma: Fort Reno’s Prisoner of War Compound. In The Chronicles of Oklahoma Volume LII, Number 3, Fall 974. Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City.