Cold War froze out possibility of local Boys Town

A Boys Town on the grounds of Camp Breckinridge very nearly became a reality in early 1948 – before frostbite from the Cold War nipped the proposal before it bloomed.

In a very real sense, it was a foreshadowing of the Job Corps Center that has operated there since May 1965. But geopolitics got in the way 75 years ago.

The Gleaner’s first mention of the project was in the Jan. 15, 1948, edition. Unbeknownst to Henderson residents, the Fraternal Order of Police lodge in Newport had been investigating the possibility for two years and laid the groundwork by contacting federal authorities and the original Boys Town near Omaha, Nebraska. The FOP agreed to fund it $70,000 the first year. Camp Breckinridge had been mothballed by the Army since March 1946.

Rev. Edward J. Flanagan had founded the Nebraska Boys Town in 1917. By 1936 it had grown so large that it was incorporated. In 1938 a movie was made about it starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney. Tracy won the best actor Oscar that year. In other words, Father Flanagan was famous; his face even appeared on a U.S. stamp in 1986.

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The Feb. 4 Gleaner noted Flanagan had selected Kenneth Corcoran of Columbus, Georgia, to oversee the local operation.

Corcoran and four other men toured the camp, according to the Feb. 12 issue, and pronounced themselves satisfied. Chester Fee, an FOP national board member from Covington, was one of them.

“We are not bringing criminals to this town,” Fee said. “We are bringing underprivileged boys … the same kind of boys Father Flanagan would accept.” The Nebraska Boys town housed 450 boys at that time. The one proposed at Camp Breckinridge was expected to house as many as 1,369 – although the FOP didn’t expect it to grow that large for years.

The Gleaner began running a contest Feb. 20 in which it asked readers to submit names for the proposed boys camp. The April 25 edition reported 2,002 possibilities were submitted. The winning entry? Boysville, submitted by Blanche Helsey.

Some of the suggestions were a bit offbeat, such as Tucky Town and Lads Flanaganfield.

Corcoran arrived in Morganfield from Georgia and said he was ready to take charge, according to the March 10 Gleaner.

The March 24 Gleaner carried a lengthy story about Corcoran in which he had addressed a joint meeting of the Lions and Rotary clubs at the Soaper Hotel. He said no more than 50 boys between the ages of 9 and 16 would be accepted the first year.

“Admission would be granted to homeless, abandoned, neglected or underprivileged boys, regardless of their nationality, religion or place of residence.”  The facility would have its own school. “We want to keep our family together.”

Boysville, despite its Catholic beginnings, would have no residential minister, priest or rabbi at the beginning, although “we will try to make plans to attend religious services away from the home.”

Home, school and church were responsible for providing the underpinnings of a boy’s character, he said.

The Nebraska facility consistently had a waiting list, and it was hoped Boysville would alleviate that. “Last year alone Father Flanagan turned down 4,325 applications of boys who needed and deserved help,” he said. “This last war has meant that there are very many young children left with only one parent and very little resources to carry on.”

The initial plan was to open Boysville by June 1, but the April 25 Gleaner noted negotiations with the federal government for a lease of 29 buildings and 362 acres were sluggish. “The war talk and other preparation moves have slowed us up,” Corcoran said.

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He had been busy drafting rules and regulations, however. The plan was for the boys to be self-governing, with elections held twice a year.

He also was planning for a court system to deal with infractions of the rules. “In all probability, Supt. Corcoran will act as defense attorney.”

Almost from the very beginning of the project there were fears that rising Cold War tensions could prompt reactivation of Camp Breckinridge and put the kibosh on Boysville. Civil wars against communists had been on-going in China and Greece and in June the Berlin Airlift began, which was a major confrontation during the early years of the Cold War.

“I hope and pray that war won’t come,” Corcoran said in the April 25 Gleaner. “But should it come, such might interfere with our program at Boysville.”

In mid-May and early June two things happened that threw a cloud over the project. The first was the death of Father Flanagan in Berlin May 15, which occurred while he was making an inspection of German youth facilities. And then the June 5 Gleaner reported the Army planned to reopen the military base. Talk among the Washington, D.C. press corps said Congress was getting ready to institute a peacetime military draft – and Camp Breckinridge would immediately reopen if that happened.

At that point, the camp had only 34 enlisted men and five officers stationed at the camp, although a detachment of another 20 soldiers from Fort Knox arrived there June 2.

The draft bill passed Congress and the July 4 Gleaner reported Camp Breckinridge was being reactivated to train 14,700 draftees. “Boysville is the town that 'existed' but never did 'live.'”

In August members of the 101^st Airborne Division began arriving at the camp. They stayed about nine months. Instead of managing Boysville, Corcoran stayed in Morganfield and ran the USO at Camp Breckinridge.

The second act for Camp Breckinridge came when the Korean War began in mid-1950. The camp was nearly as active then as it had been during World War II. A cease fire ended those hostilities July 27, 1953. U.S. Sen. Earle C. Clements had warned six weeks earlier the camp would once again be closed. It went on standby at the first of 1954.

The last 4,000 troops were trained there the summer of 1962.  On November 26, 1962, it was declared surplus property. Most of the land was sold beginning in 1965, although the core of the camp was turned into what is now the Earle C. Clements Job Corps Center. It operates to this day.

100 YEARS AGO

Two “giant” U.S. Army dirigibles based out of Scott Field near Belleville, Illinois, flew over Morganfield, according to The Gleaner of Jan. 17, 1923.

“There were two balloons seen here yesterday,” the correspondent wrote under a Jan. 16 dateline. “One of them was out of order and could not be controlled and was just floating with the wind. It passed over here going east and soon afterwards the second one hung over the city for a few minutes, stopped long enough to get a couple of can (cane?) fishing poles and then sailed east and caught up with the one in distress at Russell’s store near the Webster County line and gave it assistance….

“It is the first time an airship of that kind has ever appeared here.”

50 YEARS AGO

Dr. Richard Wham told the Henderson City Commission, “statistically, every breath we take is harmful,” according to The Gleaner of Jan. 18, 1973.

Representing the local Audubon Society and the Henderson County Medical Society, he backed up his assertion with data from the Kentucky Air Pollution Control Commission, which showed the Henderson area had the highest levels of sulfur dioxide pollution over any other part of Kentucky.

The focus of his presentation was asking the city commission to attempt to determine the sources of the pollution. “Once the city obtains the facts, we can determine if there is anything this group (the city commission) can do to eliminate this problem.”

The city commission unanimously instructed the acting city manager to contact state officials to try and get an answer. Wham said his opinion was that the biggest sources were the city power plant “and when the wind blows a different way, the Delker furniture factory. But that is just my opinion.”

25 YEARS AGO

The first of two public hearings to gather input about how the riverfront should be redeveloped prompted some push-back, according to The Gleaner of Jan. 20, 1998.

Bill Polk noted the city was planning to change use of the area between Second and Third streets.

“Historically, this area is a wharf area,” he said. “What you’re proposing is a very radical change.”

One of the main ideas circulating at that time was to convert the parking lot between the two streets into a green area. Polk said that might prove to be a better idea in concept than in actual use.

“When you’re doing this, you’re turning your back on the river. One of the things you’re doing is cutting the city off from the river, except to look at it.”

That area wound up housing an interactive water park along with a type of partial amphitheater. Polk may have had a good point about the amphitheater; over the years it has seen relatively little use.

Readers of The Gleaner can reach Frank Boyett at YesNews42@yahoo.com or on Twitter at @BoyettFrank.

This article originally appeared on Henderson Gleaner: Henderson history: Cold War froze out possibility of local Boys Town