80-year-old World War II mural moved for preservation
NEOSHO, Mo. — The Neosho Arts Council announced Monday that it completed the first stage of its effort to save the historic mural created by an unknown soldier stationed at Camp Crowder during World War II.
'When we learned about this piece of art we knew it had to be protected and preserved,' Sarah Serio, president of the Neosho Arts Council, said in a statement. 'After consultation with art preservation experts it was determined that the wall board the mural is on needed to be removed from the structure.'
The 24-foot-long unfinished mural depicts soldiers and the areas where they worked in Camp Crowder. Portions of the mural are in the early sketch stages and bear marks of a grid the artist used to transfer his design from paper to the wall. The mural is about 6 feet tall and spans eight panels of wall board.
According to the U.S. Army Historical Foundation, the Army broke ground for Camp Crowder on Aug. 30, 1941, approximately 3 miles southeast of Neosho. The first soldiers arrived Dec. 2, just five days before the Pearl Harbor attack. Camp Crowder received most of the Army's signal recruits, each of whom spent three weeks receiving basic training. At its peak, Camp Crowder covered more than 42,000 acres and housed up to 47,000 soldiers. The camp consisted of numerous buildings including barracks, mess halls and training facilities. It also had six movie theaters, 16 chapels and its own post newspaper, the Camp Crowder Message, with a circulation of 15,000.
After the war, many of the original wood structures from Camp Crowder were sold at surplus auctions. The building containing the mural was sold to a family outside of Neosho as surplus and used for agriculture work.
'We're fortunate because not only did the mural survive the closing of the camp and the moving process, they left it. They didn't remove it. They didn't paint over it,' Serio said.
John Clear, owner of Clear Construction, completed on-site assessments of the structural integrity of each panel along with the surviving building's structural integrity. He then brought in a team removing each panel of wall board the mural was on. Clear and his team donated their labor during the removal process, which Serio called 'a gift that will benefit the overall project and allow all financial donations to now be used towards the preservation of the mural.'
'As they started the removal process several pieces of trim board that had been added to the building after the war had to be taken down first and we actually unearthed just a little more of the original artwork including portions of a horse's head,' Serio said. 'John and his team were able to access the back side of the wall the mural is on, which allowed them to cut the shaft of each nail from behind the art.'
Each panel was mounted to the structure's stud walls with nails every 6 inches. At the end of the removal process, over 250 individual nails were slowly cut to release the wall board from the studs.
'Getting the panels off of the wall without breaking proved to be more difficult than anticipated. There were several panels that were cracked, some from age and some from water damage,' Clear said in a statement.
Individual panels were then walked to a staging area where a second team wrapped each panel and prepared them for packing into a custom wood crate. The panels will now be stored until funds can be secured to begin the next phase of preservation.
'We are still working to raise all the funds needed to preserve this mural but on advice from our art conservator we knew that it was vital to the arts safety to get it removed from the structure,' Serio said.
The council has set a goal of raising $25,000 to restore and preserve the mural. 'We plan to move this mural into Neosho and have it on public display so that everyone visiting our community can experience this work of art,' Serio said.
Currently, the council has raised 32% of the funds needed.
Donations can be made online at neoshoarts.net or by mailing a check to Neosho Arts Council, P.O. Box 605, Neosho, MO 64850.
'We will never find a piece of World War II mural art like this again,' Serio said. 'Before this work is lost we want to save it and we need support from the community to accomplish this goal.'
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