State

added to insure security. The Pleasant War At Hot Springs Wore about *'Tho Prison From Which No One Wauled To Escape." By CYNTHIA REIMER At the turn of the century, the South's elite filled the ballroom of the luxurious Mountain Park Hotel on warm summer evenings. Music wafted through the glass doors, riding the mist that settled on the quiet mountain town of Hot Springs. North Carolina. Out¬ side. statesmen and business tycoons strolled the maple-lined lanes of the lawn, discussing the afternoon’s golf game over a cigar. "Then came World War I. the Ger¬ man internment camp." said Mrs. Elizabeth Dotterer. niece of the inn’s proprietor. Col. Rumbough. “ . . . which took away our old life forever." On June 6. 1917. 60 days after the United States declared war on Ger¬ many. 350 German officers and 50 seamen arrived in Hot Springs. This number was soon to swell to 517 offi¬ cers and 2.300 seamen. The men. crews on German ships caught in U.S. waters, were first taken to Ellis Island in New York while im¬ migration officials began a search for a permanent camp for the enemy aliens. A site in North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest was studied and re¬ jected because of its distance from a railroad. H. W. Hampton, (grandson of General Wade Hampton) who was connected with the Department of Labor, suggested the Mountain Park at Hot Springs. The Prisoners Arrive By 1917. the grand hotel had fallen into disrepair, but the structure was sound, an important consideration in war time when materials and labor were scarce. Relatively isolated yet on the railway, the property satisfied im¬ migration officials, and the Mountain Park was leased to the United Slates government by Col. James Rumbough. When the prisoners arrived, officers were given quarters in the main hotel, but the stokers, deck hands, seamen, quartermasters and stewards from such ships as the SS Esslinnen . SS Rhein. SS Princess Alice. SS Rio Grande . SS Bocchum. and others of the North German Lloyd. Hamburg- American and the Gcrman-Austrian lines had to build their own camp on the lawn. Under international law. prisoners of war cannot be forced to work, so those who volunteered to do so. 20 percent of the prisoners, were paid by the United States government $20 per month. $3 in cash and $17 in postal savings payable at the end of the war. Twelve barracks were constructed on the upper lawn of the property by these skilled carpenters, electricians, plumbers and mechanics, and the four-story hotel was repaired. Men of Hot Springs took jobs guarding the camp until a prisoner es¬ caped. Towers were then built, and armed guards. 25 to 100 of them, from the U.S. Army, sat in the towers or walked the perimeters of the law n that was now surrounded by a formidable barbed wire fence. Mrs. Dotterer. a child at the time, remembers the guards calling out in the night. "One o'clock and all is well." Bright incandescent lights were also They Liked Grits To provide the prisoners with the kind of food to which they were ac¬ customed. the government used the purchasing agency of the Hamburg- American line. Former ships’ cooks prepared meals that included meat twice a day. a fact which aroused some criticism among Americans who were being asked to observe meatless days for the war effort. The prisoners bought fruit and veg¬ etables from Hot Springs gardeners and a prisoner named Pinard acted as commissary officer for these transac¬ tions. Introduced to grits, they are said to have asked for them daily for breakfast. Calisthenics were required each day. Tennis, bowjing and swimming helped to pass the hours and croquet was especially popular among the offi¬ cers. Championship football games were arranged but were discontinued when fighting broke out among the en¬ listed men and officers. Classes in English, history, mathe¬ matics. engineering and vocal music were set up. and these were well- attended. Gardening was a popular activity. The men made small gardens with brick and lattice walls. Paths and bor¬ ders of brick and stone divided the beds of vegetables and Rowers, and one garden had a stone grotto in a corner. Miniature Alpine Village The men watched an occasional motion picture show and played card When typhoid broke out in Hot Springs, 1 86 of the Germon prisoners were moved to on Asheville hospttol where 1 8 о» them died ond ore buried in Riverside Cemetery. This memoriol to the men, erected by the Kiffin Rockwell Post of the Americon Legion, is inscribed with on oppropriotc verse from Goethe. THE STATE. January 1983 18