that the local people should help the ladies get their uniforms. With out them, they will be unable to serve, and this would mean the closing of the Canteen Station, which has put North Platte on the map, for it is known from coast to coast. The ladies have planned a number of ways of raising this fund. Their first effort will be to sell real home made doughnuts and coffee at the [elec- tion] polls tomorrow. A day after Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated, German and Allied representatives signed an armistice in a secluded railroad car at Compiègne, north- west of Paris, at 5 a.m. French time on Nov. 11. Fighting ended six hours later, at “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,” as picked by Marshal Foch. It was 11 p.m. Nov. 10 in North Platte when the armistice was signed (as the time difference was figured a century ago). About 4 a.m. on Nov. 11, an hour before the guns in France went silent, a man named Hoaglund set off about 40 pounds of dynamite in a city park. Quarantines and bans on public meetings were forgotten as North Platte boisterously celebrated the end of “the war to end all wars.” Evening Telegraph | Nov. 12, 1918 Did North Platte celebrate? Most emphatically and vociferously she did. When the news was confirmed here at 4 a.m. the big doings commenced here and did not cease for ten continuous hours. It was a
Shown are some of the thousands of jubilant North Platte residents who filled downtown streets on Nov. 11, 1918, to celebrate the end of World War I.
As the Great War entered its final month, however, the Canteen workers’ job was tragically complicat- ed. On Oct. 4, the Evening Telegraph had reported North Platte’s official introduction to the deadly Spanish influenza pandemic, then galloping through military camps, cities and towns through- out the nation and the European fighting fronts. Evening Telegraph | Oct. 16, 1918 The Red Cross has prepared a quantity of gauze face masks to be used by those nursing and those coming in close contact with influenza patients. These masks may be obtained by any one requir- ing them at the Red Cross Canteen. Pneumonia jackets for severe cases may also be obtained at the Canteen on a written request from the physician.
The Canteen workers took soup and other food to a temporary “detention hospital” that opened on Halloween in North Platte’s brand-new (and still standing) fire station at Front and Vine streets. They also faced an unrelated problem that never troubled their plain-dressed, independent World War II counterparts. Evening Telegraph | Nov. 4, 1918 The local Canteen Service has been advised from the National [Red Cross] Headquarters that it is compulsory for all Canteen Officers to wear the regulation Canteen uniform. These uniforms are quite expensive and will cost the officers about $300. The ladies are more than willing to give of their time and energy, and it is no more than right
14 CANTEEN: AS IT HAPPENED
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