The Servicemen's Free Canteen at Lima, Ohio Historical Marker

The city of Lima, Ohio, grew into an industrial and railroad hub during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The first railroad that came to town, the Ohio & Indiana (later part of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago), arrived in 1853. After the Civil War, Lima became the center of bustling timber region. Oil was discovered nearby in 1885 and the city’s prosperity and population ballooned. By 1888, five railroads—the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago; the Dayton & Michigan; the Lake Erie & Western; the Chicago & Atlantic; and the Columbus, Lima & North Western—ran through Lima. One year earlier, the Pennsylvania Railroad, which owned the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago, had built a new Queen Anne/Eastlake-style passenger depot. Used by the Pennsylvania, Penn-Central, Conrail, and Amtrak until 1970, it was ultimately the longest-serving passenger station in Lima.

By World War II, the Pennsylvania station was located perpendicular to, and two hundred yards from, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and Nickel Plate Road station. These tracks intersected with those of the Pennsylvania between the two stations, and, together, they were a busy rail stop. As the United States began getting ready for the war, thousands of troops passed through Lima on their way to other stations.

In January 1940, Alice Throckmorton McLean founded the American Women’s Voluntary Services, whose goal was to organize women across the country to perform support tasks for the coming war effort. By Pearl Harbor, the AWVS had eighteen thousand members; by the end of the war, it was the largest such organization in the country, with over three hundred and fifty thousand members between it and its auxiliaries. The Lima Chapter of the AWVS was started by Ellouise Larsen in 1942, and it immediately set about establishing a service canteen at the Pennsylvania station. These canteens offered a warm greeting; hot meals, drinks, and desserts (often a bologna salad sandwich, coffee, and cookies or pie); and newspapers and magazines to soldiers traveling across the country, all in less than seven minutes per stop. By 1945, there were forty-three such canteens located across the country, twelve of which were in Ohio.

The Servicemen’s Free Canteen in Lima, located in white shed on the east end of the Pennsylvania station platform, was the largest in Ohio and the second-largest in the United States. Food donations came in from twelve surrounding counties. Hundreds of volunteers worked to meet as many as fifty trains, around the clock and in all weather conditions. Dozens of families, churches, businesses, and community organizations aided the effort in some way, including the Gold Star Mothers, who served at least once a week. The Lima canteen even coordinated with others along the same rail lines, so that each could serve a fraction of the soldiers on each train quickly without delaying any timetables. Between its creation in 1942 and the end of the war, the Lima canteen served approximately two-and-a-half million American troops. Furthermore, shortly after victory in Europe was declared, it became a collection point for donations earmarked for foreign refugees.

While the national AWVS continued to operate for decades, the Lima Chapter closed at the end of the war, officially shuttering the canteen on November 5th, 1945. However, the thousands of canteen volunteers refused to stop, and they were back the very next day. The old building was removed and the canteen moved into a section house until a new structure was donated; a third and final canteen hut was built in 1952. The Lima canteen, the only one in the country to outlast World War II, continued to serve troops through both the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War. Each January, the volunteers voted to continue serving for the following year, and they did, until the canteen finally closed on September 12th, 1970.

In summary, the Lima canteen, at twenty-eight years in operation, was the longest-serving canteen in the country. It had ten thousand volunteers serving four million troops on one hundred and forty-six thousand trains two-and-a-half million pounds of food and one hundred eighty-seven-and-a-half thousand gallons of beverages, all for free. This charity had a lasting impact on both the community and the men they served. Soldiers regularly wrote to the Lima newspaper expressing their thanks. Today, the Allen County Museum possesses letters and poems from troops grateful for the provisions given and care shown by the people of Lima.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Alice Throckmorton McLean, Encyclopaedia Britannica. March 4th 2020. Accessed July 28th 2020. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alice-Throckmorton-McLean.

Feehan, Jennifer. Lima's WW II canteen still serving memories, The Blade. October 16th 2007. Accessed July 28th 2020. https://www.toledoblade.com/frontpage/2007/10/16/Lima-s-WW-II-canteen-still-serving-memories.html.

Fischer, William, Jr. Servicemen's Free Canteen, HMdb.org. January 20th 2020. Accessed July 28th 2020. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=22951.

Hoersten, Greg. Carrie Hughes: Serving where needed, LimaOhio.com. March 24th 2020. Accessed July 28th 2020. https://www.limaohio.com/features/lifestyle/403822/carrie-hughes-serving-where-needed.

Lima, Ohio's Servicemen's Free Canteen, Cam-Tech Publishing. Internet Archive Wayback Machine. August 15th 2018. Accessed July 28th 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20180815044619/http://canteenbooks.com/Lima%20Canteen.htm.

Poffinberger, Alice. American Women's Voluntary Services enamel pin, 1940s, Duke University Libraries: Archives & Manuscripts: Collection Guides. February 2016. Accessed July 28th 2020. https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/americanwomensvoluntaryservices.

Rausche, Yolita E. et. al. Lima Pennsylvania Railroad Passenger Depot, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Ohio Historic Preservation Office. August 21st, 2003. National Archives Catalog. Accessed July 28th 2020. https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_OH/03000805.pdf.