Indianola POW Camp

What is left of the camp has been read with metal detectors. In a 2013 master's thesis at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, advised by Peter Bleed, archaeologist Allison Young combined archival research with a metal-detector survey and test excavation to ask whether the ground shows the camp keeping to the 1929 Geneva Convention. She found the prisoner areas tightly controlled and the camp salvaged and reused after the war. From 1944 Indianola also held pro-Nazi noncommissioned officers. In June 2015 her talk on the camp drew a sold-out crowd and a second tour bus.

What the plaque says

Indianola POW Camp The US built prisoner of war camps across the country during World War II. One such camp opened north of Indianola. It held mostly German soldiers captured in North Africa and Italy. Prisoners began arriving by train in November 1943. The camp was in full operation by the end of the year. Camp Indianola was laid out over 250 acres. It had nearly 200 buildings and could house up to 3,000 prisoners. It served as both a base camp and a branch camp, housing 2,549 prisoners at its peak. The original plan was for prisoners to work on flood control projects. Instead, a wartime labor shortage created a need for farm workers. Prisoners were sent from Indianola to smaller camps where they were hired out to farmers. After the war, Camp Indianola was transferred to the Bureau of Reclamation. It housed workers and their families during construction of flood control projects. Removal, neglect, and demolition have left a collection of ruins. Some buildings were relocated and used as homes. Indianola Historical Society Nebraska State Historical Society, 2019

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Senator George Norris State Historic Site — 11 mi
  The McCook house George W. Norris kept as his home base for forty-two years, given to the state with its furniture by his wife Ellie, by the senator who wrote the lame-duck amendment.

More markers nearby

• Pawnee Woman's Grave — 0.3 mi
• Mallalieu University — 6.0 mi
• George William Norris, 1861-1944 — 11 mi
• Frontier County, Stockville — 21 mi