SALINA, Utah — A local volunteer in central Utah has made it his mission to teach people about what he claims is an important, but often unknown, piece of state history.
"It was a program that we probably didn’t want to have here, but we welcomed it here," explained Rodney Rasmussen.
It was during the Great Depression, between 1933 and 1942, when the small town of Salina played host to a newly created federal program.
Rodney Rasmussen, now an 84-year-old retired school teacher, is a museum tour guide at the CCC & POW Camp. The buildings that still remain of the work camp were created under the New Deal program and was one of 35 Civilian Conservation Corps sites in the state.
Later, in 1942, the location that sits on Salina's Main Street became the site of a German prisoner of war camp; one of four in Utah and the only location still teaching visitors about what happened there over 80 years ago.
"They don’t teach it in school and their parents are probably too young to remember it, most of them anyway, so they don’t know about it and I’m not surprised," explained Rasmussen, "and some of the older people in town just don’t want to talk about it."
The 43 tents that housed 250 Germans was in operation for three years, with many of the prisoners working in local farms while creating fond relationships with the residents.
However, on July 7, 1945, a camp guard opened fire on the sleeping prisoners, killing nine, something Rasmussen, who lived down the road, remembers vividly.
"It awakened us, and my father and I came out on our front porch and we could hear the shooting and we could hear the cries of the prisoners," said Rasmussen, who was six years old at the time.
These days, Rasmussen says he likes to remember the good that happened at the camps, especially how well the prisoners were cared for, but admits that bad things overshadow it.
"It’s something, like I say, that probably most people would like to forget, but it’s a part of history," he said.
Rasmussen remains the only guide giving tours at the last-of-its-kind camp. He's on-site and available and visitors can just give him a call, except on Sundays, and he says he’ll come on over.
