West Helena's POW Camp

West Helena's POW Camp. . , Fairground Transformed , Fourteen-year-old Imogene Eakin watched with excitement as workmen labored at the fairground opposite her Cleburne Avenue home. They built guard towers, erected barbed-wire fence, and converted the exhibit hall into offices, barracks, and a mess hall. They transformed the site of the annual county fair into a prisoner-of-war camp. , Prisoners Filled the Labor Gap , The War Department authorized the camp August 7, 1943, days after receiving an application from the Phillips County Farmers Association. Desperate farmers applied for 885 war prisoners to replace men who had joined the armed forces or taken war-related factory jobs., The Prisoners Arrive , The first prisoners of war arrived September 9, 1943 , about 200 Italians transferred from the prisoner-of-war camp at Monticello, Arkansas. In January 1944, German prisoners replaced the Italians. At its height, the camp housed almost 500 prisoners. , Unlikely Farm Hands , Every morning, trucks picked up crews of thirty or so prisoners. Although few had farm experience, they tended livestock, managed rice levees, brought in hay, and planted, fertilized and harvested truck crops. Prisoners also picked thousands of pounds of cotton. Phillips County farmers called them “life savers.” , Thirty Work Camps in Arkansas , In 1944, a second Phillips County camp was established in Elaine. The War Department eventually authorized thirty work camps in Arkansas, all but four in the Delta. The West Helena camp closed March 21, 1946, and the property returned to the Phillips County Fair Association. , Support generously provided by Southern Bancorp Community Partners and Helena-West Helena Advertising and Promotion Commissions.