TIN CAN CAPTAINS

Today's blog is about reusing products during WWII for the sake of the nation and the service men. It is beyond sugar, shoes, and tires. It is about each and every American helping. It is a little boy or girl pulling a wagon through a neighborhood collecting tin cans, Boy Scout troops gathering paper, and carefully tearing down an old school building and reusing the lumber. It is all about the individuals, not mentioned, who banned together as a community to do their part.


April 15, 1943
That old tin can is big, because it's used in products to keep our Army rolling and fighting--and countless other military uses. Tin is now a precious metal, because our enemies own land where we used to get most of ours. Salvage every can except paint, varnish, and oil cans.

Four hundred average cans make a bar 2" x 1" x 1". Five tin cans make a pound. Ten tin cans make one hand grenade. Ten to 14 cans make a smoke bomb. Even one tin can can make a small piece for radio equipment.

April 22, 1943
Rotary League Club has put out boxes to collect old keys, they are part of a campaign to collect metal for the war effort.

May 30, 1943
Service men now get gas on home visits. Up to five gallons of gas will be allotted to members of the Armed Forces for personal errands.

April 6, 1944
Saturday's scrap paper pickup in city nets seven ton. In the second All-City paper drive on Saturday, April 8, three local Boy Scout troops collected another load of waste paper for national defense.

August 31, 1944
Central School dismantling is now on its way. The man who is taking down the structure states that some of the material will be utilize by the local school district for construction of a proposed bus storage garage and that the Middle River School District, who's building was destroyed by fire has been given the choice of the remainder. Depending on the amount of material unsold, the plan is to use the rest to build one to four small houses.

September 21, 1944
Stanley Ranum awarded school bus garage job with a bid of $6,983.67. Construction will begin Monday at the site north of the industrial training department of Lincoln High School. Lumber from the old Central School Building will be used.


My parents were part of the help the nation era. I remember the stories of the drives. We were living in the ten hundred block of north Main Avenue in a house moved from Rosewood with an addition. Mother and Daddy had three flat tires on their way to be married. Since hosiery were not available, because nylon was needed for the war effort, mother drew a black line down the back of her legs to represent the seam s in stockings. Yet, when they told the stories, it was not about them, it was about what America needed to do.

Think about that and thank serviceman past and present, and future for their part in keeping us free.

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