Clark County History: Italian POWs By Martin Middlewood for The Columbian
Published: May 23, 2021, 6:05am
Share: After Italy s surrender in 1943, the Allies sent Italian prisoners of war to the U.S. Some came to Vancouver to wait out the end of the war. The POWs followed the barracks military schedule and discipline. They wore khaki uniforms with Italy patches on the left sleeve. Those with specialized skills put their experience to use for the Army. The rest labored at Vancouver Barracks on anything the military needed. The men in this photo appear to be in a woodworking shop. The POWs stayed until 1946 working at the barracks, Camp Hathaway and Camp Bonneville. (Contributed by U.S. Signal Corps)
Clark County History: Columbia Lancaster By Martin Middlewood, for The Columbian
Published: May 2, 2021, 6:00am
Share: This painting of Columbia Lancaster hangs in the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma. His friends called him Judge because he sat on the Oregon Territorial Provisional Government Court before the Washington Territory was formed in 1853. Later he became the first district judge in the Washington Territory and its first delegate to Congress. (Contributed by Washington State History Museum)
Columbia Lancaster’s mother changed the boy’s name from Thomas after Meriwether Lewis visited their home in New Milford, Conn., and told the family about the great river of the West.
Clark County History: USS Casablanca By Martin Middlewood, for The Columbian
Published: April 25, 2021, 6:00am
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3 Photos Henry Kaiser convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt that by splitting his production on the East and West Coast he could build 100 baby flattops as escorts for battleships. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt christens the USS Casablanca on April 5, 1943, before a crowd of 75,000 onlookers. The ship was the first completed and launched at Vancouver shipyard. Later, she was renamed Alazon Bay. (Contributed by National Park Service) Photo Gallery
In 1942, she was a hollow hull bearing the number 1092. Of the 137 ships constructed and launched there, she was first. Six months later, 1092 emerged as the first “baby flattop” built at Vancouver’s Kaiser Shipyard. Unfortunately, she contained a flaw.
Clark County History: Vancouver’s historical connection to Panama By Martin Middlewood for The Columbian
Published: April 18, 2021, 6:00am
Share: After seven years work, George Washington Goethals finished the Panama Canal in 1914, completing a task that stymied two other engineers. He commenced his first real engineering work as a lieutenant at the Vancouver Barracks, and performed many routine duties, including planning the headquarters building, designing the new post cemetery, mapping telegraph lines and creating tables marking the distances between Department of the Columbia posts. This photo was taken before his death in 1928. (Contributed by Library of Congress)
Maybe his middle name, Washington, foretold George W. Goethals’ (1858-1928) assignment to the Vancouver Barracks during 1882-1884. As the sole engineer under ill-tempered Brig. Gen. Nelson Miles, district commander, he was expected to be the Columbia District’s engineering mastermind. Th
Virginia Weygandt, Clark County Heritage Center, and an artifact from the center.
Virginia Weygandt, Clark County Heritage Center Curator Emeritus, looks back on the grand opening of the center 20 years ago.
The Clark County Heritage Center celebrated the 20th anniversary of its opening on March 31. Virginia Weygandt, the center’s curator emeritus, has vivid recollections of the opening and all that went into it and the joys of her recently completed career. She shared them with WYSO Clark County reporter Tom Stafford.
We often search for truths of the past in the historical fine print. But Virginia Weygandt spent 31 years caring for the objects in the Clark County Historical Society collection and focused on what they could tell.