Guthrie Building
Paducah, McCracken County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
Guthrie Building. "All gave some, some gave all"- Established in 1897, it is also known as the Fraternity Building. During WWII, it was home of the Paducah-McCracken County Draft Board. Nearly 5,000 men & women from the Paducah area served in the war. It was designated a Kentucky Landmark in 2002 and is now used as an office building.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
Built in 1897 and long known as the Fraternity Building, this downtown Paducah landmark took on a wartime role during World War II as home to the Paducah–McCracken County Draft Board. Nearly 5,000 area men and women served in the war, many of them processed through this very building. It was named a Kentucky Landmark in 2002 and continues in use as offices.
Why it matters
The building is a reminder of how ordinary civic structures became the machinery of a nation at war, mobilizing a community's sons and daughters into the global fight of World War II.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related events
- · World War II
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Republic Aviation P-47 Thunderbolt Plant
Evansville, IN
On this site during World War II, Republic Aviation Corporation ran a plant that became a linchpin of Evansville's remarkable wartime industrial mobilization. Between 1942 and 1945, more than five thousand men and women here built 6,242 P-47 Thunderbolts—the rugged, hard-hitting fighter prized for its speed and durability. Evansville, like many mid-American cities, transformed almost overnight from a regional manufacturing town into an arsenal-of-democracy powerhouse.
Ardennes Campaign Memorial
Saint Louis County, MO
This memorial honors the comrades who gave their lives helping defeat the German armies in the Ardennes — the brutal winter fighting of late 1944 and early 1945 better known as the Battle of the Bulge. It was Hitler's last great western offensive, and American troops absorbed its full fury in the frozen forests of Belgium and Luxembourg.
World War II POW Camp
Mississippi County, AR
During World War II, the United States held hundreds of thousands of captured Axis soldiers in camps on American soil, and the labor-short farm country of eastern Arkansas hosted several. The Bassett camp was one of eight in Mississippi County, holding German prisoners who worked the surrounding cotton fields under guard. Some grew familiar enough with the land and the work that they took up farming after the war.
Sewart Air Force Base
Smyrna, TN
During World War II the airfield outside Smyrna became one of the many training bases that transformed sleepy Southern towns into hubs of the American war effort. This memorial honors Major Allan J. Sewart, Jr., a Tennessee airman lost in the Pacific theater in 1942, whose name the installation later carried in tribute. It is a reminder that behind every base name stood a real person and a real loss.