German POWs in the East Texas Timber Industry
Lufkin, Angelina County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The U.S. Army began building POW camps in the United States in early 1942 for captured Axis prisoners. During World War II, the Army shipped almost 425,000 military prisoners to 511 camps in the U.S. Approximately 50,000 of those POWs, primarily Germans, were housed in 70 Texas facilities ranging from 9000-prisoner base camps to small branch camps for 250. The POWs filled American labor shortages brought on by the war's strain on available stateside man power. In Texas almost half of the camps provided agricultural workers for rice and cotton fields. Texas businessmen requested another 12 camps for help in the timber industry. Most of these were set up to salvage lumber and pulpwood from a severe ice storm in January 1944. The headquarters for the salvage work was Lufkin, the only Texas town to have two POW camps during the war. The original POW camp, known as Camp Number 1 was located just north of the city on U.S. Hwy 69. Southland Paper Mills, led by Ernest Kurth, S.W. Henderson and Arthur Temple, leased an abandoned CCC camp from the U.S. Forest Service. Construction of the camp began in November 1943 and it officially opened on February 15, 1944. The camp's 300 German prisoners produced pulpwood until it closed in 1946. Southland's success with POW labor encouraged other lumber companies to follow suit. Southland established Camp Number 2 in late April 1944 at the county fairgrounds, one mile southeast of town, where the Lufkin school district later established schools. It operated briefly in 1944 to provide labor for salvaging ice-damaged timber. The Army housed the 500 prisoners at the camp in cement and wood dorms. Camp Number 2 closed in September 1944. Texas in World War II - 2006
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
During World War II the U.S. Army held roughly 425,000 Axis prisoners in camps across the country, and Texas alone housed about 50,000, mostly Germans, to fill wartime labor shortages. Lufkin became the only Texas town with two POW camps, put to work salvaging pulpwood and timber wrecked by a severe January 1944 ice storm. German prisoners at Southland Paper Mills' Camp Number 1 produced pulpwood until 1946, while a second camp at the fairgrounds ran briefly to clear ice-damaged forest.
Why it matters
The camps reveal a little-known home-front reality: enemy prisoners working American fields and forests, keeping vital industries running while a generation of local men were away at war.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
During World War II, the American home front faced a problem few civilians ever expect: what to do with hundreds of thousands of captured enemy soldiers. As the war ground on, the U.S. Army built a vast network of prisoner-of-war camps across the country. The marker records the scale plainly — nearly 425,000 Axis prisoners held in 511 camps, with roughly 50,000, primarily Germans, housed in about 70 facilities in Texas alone.
The reason so many prisoners ended up laboring in American fields and forests was simple: the war had drained the country of workers. Millions of men were away in uniform, and the industries that kept the nation fed and supplied were desperately short of hands. Under the rules of war, prisoners could be put to work on non-military labor, and across rural America they became an unexpected part of the wartime workforce.
East Texas in this period was timber country. Its pine forests fed sawmills and paper mills that supplied a war-hungry economy, and the region's fortunes were tied to the health of that industry. When crisis struck the forests, the labor shortage made recovery all the harder — setting the stage for one of the more unusual chapters of the Texas home front.
People & events
The specific spark, the marker explains, was a severe ice storm in January 1944 that damaged huge stands of East Texas timber. Salvaging that ice-broken pine and pulpwood before it rotted was urgent work, and with local men away at war, Texas businessmen turned to prisoner labor — requesting a dozen camps to help the timber industry recover.
Lufkin, in Angelina County, became the headquarters for that salvage effort and earned a singular distinction: the only Texas town to host two POW camps during the war. Camp Number 1, north of the city, was organized when Southland Paper Mills — led by Ernest Kurth, S.W. Henderson, and Arthur Temple — leased an abandoned Civilian Conservation Corps camp from the U.S. Forest Service. Construction began in November 1943, the camp opened on February 15, 1944, and its roughly 300 German prisoners produced pulpwood until it closed in 1946.
Southland's success encouraged other lumber companies to follow suit. A second facility, Camp Number 2, was established in late April 1944 at the county fairgrounds just southeast of town, where the prisoners were housed in cement and wood dormitories. It operated only briefly, clearing ice-damaged timber before closing in September 1944 — its fairgrounds site later becoming home to local schools.
Its place in the American story
The Lufkin camps open a window onto a little-remembered reality of the American home front: enemy prisoners working within the United States, keeping vital industries running while a generation of local men were away at war. The numbers the marker cites — hundreds of thousands of POWs in hundreds of camps nationwide — reveal just how large this hidden workforce was.
Texas, with its warm climate and abundant open land, held a disproportionate share of these prisoners, and the marker notes that nearly half of the state's camps supplied agricultural workers for rice and cotton fields. The timber camps of East Texas were a variation on that theme, applying prisoner labor to a resource emergency — the salvage of an ice-shattered forest — that the depleted wartime labor pool could not have met alone.
This chapter also reflects the intimate way a global war reached into rural America. In small towns and county fairgrounds, ordinary citizens found themselves neighbors to captured German soldiers, and local industries built their wartime survival partly on that labor. It is a reminder that the Second World War was not fought only overseas; its logistics, shortages, and improvisations reshaped daily life in places as far from any front as the piney woods of East Texas.
If you visit
This is a landmark of memory more than of surviving structures, so come prepared to use your imagination and the marker's own detail. It stands in Lufkin, the town the Army made headquarters for its East Texas timber salvage — and, remarkably, the only Texas town to hold two POW camps during the war.
Use the marker to map the vanished geography. Camp Number 1 lay just north of the city, on the site of a leased and abandoned Civilian Conservation Corps camp; Camp Number 2 stood about a mile southeast at the old county fairgrounds, ground that later became home to local schools. Picturing those two sites — one producing pulpwood into 1946, the other clearing storm-broken timber for just a few months in 1944 — brings the scale of the effort to life.
Angelina County remains deep in the heart of East Texas timber country, so a visit pairs naturally with exploring the region's forests and its long history of lumber and paper. As you stand here, consider the strangeness of it: German prisoners of war laboring in these very woods, and a local industry that leaned on them to survive a hard winter's damage while the war raged an ocean away.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Ernest Kurth
- · Arthur Temple
Related events
- · World War II
Themes & tags
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