In this week's DailySouthtown Landmarks, Camp Thornton is featured. It is a former Civilian Conservation Corps site between Thornton and Glenwood that was a prisoner of war camp during WWII.
Concrete American flag art at Sweet Woods forest preserve between Thornton and Glenwood was created by German prisoners of war captured during World War II.
It was one of over 500 facilities established in the United States that collectively housed more than 400,000 enemy combatants. The majority of the prisoners were captured in 1943 when German General Erwin Rommel’s expeditionary forces surrendered in North Africa, according to a presentation by Illinois State Archaeological Survey staff archaeologist Paula Bryant, who is based in Elgin.she said at a 2019 conference on Preserving U.S.
At the former Camp Thornton, that cultural history is mostly “hidden in plain sight,” Bryant said. At its peak, there were a dozen or so buildings, wide pathways and even a baseball diamond.
“They never seemed to create any problem,” Egdorf said. “Frankly, I think the prisoners were relieved to be here in peace.”of The Journal of Military History in which Hickory Hills resident Thomas Pearson recalled riding bicycles to gawk at the prisoners, and being greeted by glares along with a few polite salutations in German. As the months went by, he noticed the POWs using more English.
Fresh from talking Illinois Central Railroad officials into donating land that had been used to excavate massive amounts of sand for rail siding projects to the village of Homewood, Senior got wind that Camp Thornton was empty, and acquired one of the barracks buildings, which was cut into segments and brought to what is now the, where it was reassembled to become the new preserve’s headquarters and meeting hall, according to John Brinkman, the preserve’s president.
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