Durango Museum marks 100th anniversary of World War I

By Mary Shinn
via the Durango Herald web site

David and Sheila Allen of Crossett, Ark., look over the World War I exhibit at the Animas Museum. The display went up in June and is expected to stay up until next summer. (Photo by Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)The Animas Museum is marking the service of hundreds of people from La Plata County who served in World War I this year with activities and a new exhibit in honor of the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entering the war.

The conflict lasted from 1914 to 1918, but the U.S. didn’t enter the war until April 1917.

Museum volunteers dug into articles and letters published in The Durango Democrat to create an exhibit focusing on local men drafted into the war and efforts to support the troops in La Plata County.

“Patriotism was just at a fever pitch,” said Carolyn Bowra, a museum volunteer who did research for the exhibit.

A parade was held for contingents of drafted men leaving for the war, including an African American man who had to leave alone to serve in his segregated regiment, she said.

Red Cross chapters organized efforts to roll bandages, knit socks, sweaters and other clothing.

“We basically sent an army with homemade equipment,” Bowra said.

Anti-German sentiment accompanied the patriotism and a German language book-burning was held in June 1918.

The exhibit will be on display for about year, and since opening in June, it’s been well received, she said.

“People are loving it. ... They kind of knew they didn’t know too much about WWI, and then when they see it, they realize how much they didn’t know,” she said.

Read the entire article on the Durango Herald web site here.

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