WWI had lasting impact on Cache Valley

The Ray B. West Building was originally built in 1918 as a dormitory for soldiers in WWI.

One hundred years ago, on November 11, 1918 at 11 a.m., the Allies and the world powers of World War I signed the Armistice, ending the global conflict. President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Armistice Day one year later commemorating the end of the war. Congress formally made it a national holiday in 1936.

Emily Wheeler

On April 6, 1917 President Woodrow Wilson officially declared war against Germany, and the United States joined the conflict in Europe that had begun in 1914.

The US had 4.7 million men and women involved in the war effort, with 2.8 million serving overseas. It was estimated that that war cost over 116,500 American lives.

The factories and homes in Europe had all been bombed, while U.S. factories became more efficient and productive during the Great War. Post WWI, the country emerged as an industrial giant and the economy was booming and profits were on the rise, producing the Roaring 20’s.

The war also affected Cache Valley, but in different ways.

WWI impacted us more than we realize,” said Emily Wheeler, a lecturer at Utah State University during a recent lecture series. “We were a land grant university. What that meant was that all the male students had to be involved in military training.”

The government wanted more places to train, so USU’s president at the time, E.G. Peterson, encouraged the government to build training facilities on the Utah Agricultural College campus.

Stewart Garlic a student at USU reads the student newspaper between classes. The Geology building behind him was built in 1918 for use by soldiers during WW!.

Peterson got the legislature to approve building dorms out of brick instead of wood. The three buildings are still on campus today. The R.B. West Engineering Building, the Geology Building and Animal Science building were all built in 1918 to house soldiers. Peterson also did a lot to expand campus programs. He suggested instructors brought in to train the military on radio, electronics, mechanics and engineering, also be used to teach students on campus.

Soldiers came to the UAC to train and the basement of Old Main was used for bunking soldiers. The men came as Student Army Training Corps to learn skills that would to help them at war. Some soldiers stayed in the bottom of the R.B. West Building, and the girls studying homemaking skills were upstairs. They would cook for the soldiers.

All of the local soldiers were gone, so men from outside of Utah came to train. It was good for Cache Valley, Wheeler said. However, an influx of unknown men also caused a lot of concern. Specifically, people were scared of Wyoming soldiers housed at the UAC. The newspaper printed articles telling people not to be afraid of outsiders. After a time, people warmed up to the soldiers. Wheeler said it was good for the valley to welcome outsiders.

Another interesting fact was there were women on campus that trained to be soldiers to defend the homeland.

“The Legion of Death is what the school or students seem to have called the female students who trained to fight in case of invasion,” Wheeler said. “It wasn’t official in the sense that it came from the army or government (the army had no female soldiers, and the Navy and Marines used women only for clerical positions), and it may have just been a nickname of sorts, but that’s how they were referred to in the student paper, in what seems to have been a serious manner.”

Old Main wasn’t old during WWI and housed soldiers in training for the war.

At the end of the war, Spanish Influenza was spread by soldiers returning from the war. The flu killed an estimated 500 million worldwide and 675,000 Americans.

Wheeler said the media lied to the people of Cache Valley. More people died of the flu than the paper reported, she said. The numbers in the papers did not match the bodies on the streets.

“The war pushed us into a modern and post-modern world,” Wheeler said. “We may not think about it a lot as being pertinent to our lives, but it did change things for Utah and our society.”

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