Acquisition of land in Pymatuning Township, Pennsylvania, began almost immediately with cooperative landowners from a total of 26 farms paid an average of $70 per acre for their potato fields.
Upon receiving their contract awards, Gannett, Eastman, Fleming of Harrisburg, and Mellon-Stuart Construction Co. of Pittsburgh designed and built the encampment to last just three years, but also to be unlike any other military depot at the time.
The project then ramped up quickly as thousands of engineers and construction workers arrived and 4,200 men employed by the main contractors and 24 subcontractors began working 10-hour days and six-day weeks after ground for the first supply building was broken near the overhead highway bridge on Route 18 on July 8.
Servicemen also made their own fun, organizing baseball, boxing and track and field events, a drum and bugle corps, several dance bands, stage productions, and bowling, handball and basketball leagues with one cage tournament attracting roughly 23 GI teams.
Among those making appearances at the camp were: Louis Armstrong, Bonnie Baker, Blue Barron, Major Bowes and his Amateur Hour, the Camel Caravan, Stu Erwin and the cast of "Goodnight Ladies", Judy Garland, Benny Goodman, the Harmonic Rascals, Andy Kerr, Wayne King, the Mills Brothers, Olsen and Johnson's "Helzapoppin", June Preisser, Art Rooney, contralto Alice Stewart, Bob Strong, the cast of the "Truth or Consequences" radio show, and Virginia Weidler.
Boxers Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Two-Ton Tony Galento, and Fritzie Zivic also made appearances, as did billiard experts Irving Crane and Charles Peterson, members of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cleveland Indians, Governor Edward Martin, and a number of touring OSO shows and amateur theatrical groups from Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Ohio, Youngstown, Ohio, and Sharon, Pennsylvania.
[6] In addition, attractive bus and rail fares enabled many soldiers to travel to Sharon, New Castle, Farrell, Youngstown, and other nearby cities to seek rest and relaxation before their departure overseas, and the United Service Organization (USO) also helped ensure that men were kept busy during their off-duty hours away from camp.
With help from the War Department, the organization built an $86,000 recreation center in Greenville's Riverside Park, where 812,530 servicemen were entertained over an 18-month period; 475,000 men also visited the USO's Buhl Club in Sharon.
Sunderman, who came Oct. 1, 1942, and was followed by a quartermaster detachment of seven men from Fort Monroe, VA. On Nov. 4, Lt. Col. George H. Cherrington arrived and was followed by the first components of the headquarters company from New Cumberland, PA.
The city of Pittsburgh and several area colleges, among them Thiel, Allegheny, and Westminster, bought additional dozens, as did many individuals seeking to convert them to garages, hunting camps, and other uses.
He was recaptured the first time near Oil City and on another occasion had to be rescued by police from atop a suburban Pittsburgh dwelling where he had been chased by two dogs.
Not long before the last of the prisoners departed several hundred of their number was ushered into a post theater and shown motion picture footage they probably never will forget during the balance of their lives.
This first area showing of the U.S. Signal Corps films depicting the Nazi atrocities at Adolf Hitler's death camps visibly disturbed the POWs.
The manner in which many Black soldiers were treated during the early days and months of the Shenango Personnel Replacement Depot (SPRD) operation is a blot the War Department has never been proud of and has always been reluctant to talk about.
Southern officers and GIs especially did not mix well with the Black soldiers and consequently, the treatment of the African Americans probably was what was considered to be about normal for that period in history.
Magargee wrote that according to the Blue Sky owner the Black troops were not permitted to enter the inn when Southern soldiers were inside.
It came as no great surprise, then, that the ill feelings harbored by some Black and white troops alike eventually flared into an ugly race riot that ended up with a deadly exchange of gunfire lasting several hours.
The Department of the Army's Center of Military History, in response to a communication from this writer and Congressman Tom Ridge, supplied one version of the flare-up by providing a single page copied from Ulysses Lee's publication titled The Employment of Negro Troops.
This first instance, brought under control by white and Black military police using tear gas, was followed by another when two new prisoners, picked up for a pass violation, spread news of the earlier fracas to men in the guardhouse.
Kerpan's recollection is that at least two Black soldiers were killed and several others probably were wounded in the resulting gunfire which lasted from about 5 o'clock in the afternoon until long after dark.
He told Terkel that on the day of the flare-up he and a friend he knew only as "Kansas" had just emerged from a theater to find a group of Black soldiers engaged in what he described as a "big discussion."
At least some of the facts about this unsavory chapter of the camp's history are finally in the public realm and may help to put many rumors at rest at long last.
Community leaders from Greenville and Sharon, together with other interests from throughout the county, then came up with another idea and attempted to conclude arrangements for the building of a 1,800-bed veteran's hospital.
In 1946 Silas Moss was elected president of the Greenville Business Men's Association (GBMA) and work began in earnest to acquire Camp Reynolds to be developed industrially for the benefit of the entire area.
With behind-the-scenes help from Congressman Carroll D. Kearns, many months of work ensued until finally, in the summer of 1947, fifty-seven acres of the camp, including the warehouse area with buildings totaling 251,164 square feet of floor space and some two miles of railroad sidings, were purchased by the GBMA.
In order to expedite the collection of the rental from Westinghouse Electric Corporation, three members of the association, Luther Kuder, Norman Mortensen, and Jess Dart, supplied $38,000 from their own resources and $2,500 was allocated and borrowed from the GBMA's post-war fund.
After having rented the balance of the warehouse area to three other firms on three-year lease-purchase arrangements, the trustees turned their attention to additional lands.
Negotiations with an engineering firm for development of the site already had begun and the land belonging to the association completely surrounded Mr. Templeton's 258 acres with the exception of his property's east boundary.
Prior to Parker's arrival, operation of the development corporation was under the control of a board of trustees appointed by officers and directors of the Business Men's Association.
The original park consisted of a 430-acre portion of the one-time army training center now occupied by numerous industrial, warehouse, and service-related operations.