During World War II, 6 million U.S. and Allied servicemen came to know the “North Platte Canteen” as a poignant, welcoming taste of home en route to or from fighting fronts across the world.

But North Platte’s amazing “Canteen Spirit” was actually born in 1918, during World War I, and it lives on yet today. The North Platte Telegraph is proud to present west central Nebraska’s century-old legacy of hospitality to America’s armed forces, “as it happened” through its on-the-spot Canteen coverage and the repository of Canteen photos at the Lincoln County Historical Museum in North Platte.