The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-07-17
WARTIME BOOM
 HITS HISTORIC
 SOUTHERN CITY

Petersburg, Va, July IT. (UP)- Historic Petersburg, scene of thA south's last stand and famed for it's well-kept Civil War shrines. to- day is over-run with thousands of troops and wartime workmen.
 Splitting at the seams" was the way one social worker described the city after the boom created by the army's biggest quartermaster school at nearby Camp Lee had severely taxed civic and social facilities.
 The city's normal population was 30,631 in 1940, but that was before an army of construction workers poured in to resurrect vast army base on the site of old Camp Lee, a World War I cantonment named for Gen. Robert E. Lee, who once bloodily defended the land on which 1t lies.
 Behind the workers came the sol. diers = by the thousands. Camp Lees strength has been variously estimated as high as 33,000 men, most of whom are undergoing training in the Quartermaster Corps Technical schools huge shops and sprawling buildings. Pre-draft shoemakers teach draf- tees the intricacies of their trade, as do mechanics, bakers. tailors, and the rest of the men that Keep Elm Rolling"
 Six miles away, at Hopewell. Va, acres of buildings and scientifically tangled pipelines surge with capa- city war production.
 Officers Fill Guest Homes
 The resultant war boom shook every stratum of the city's eco- homie life. Wages were high and labor was scarce, although hun- dredS came in to take the boom time jobs. Many camped in trailers on the former sites of World War I laborer barracks. Rents rocketed and prices went up. luke joints, cafes and amusement halls-all of flmsy, temporary construction = went up overnight.
 Guest homes that once catered to history conscious tourists were crammed with army officers and defense workers. Houses rented at almost any price for any kind of house, despite efforts of the Fed orally sponsored local rent com- mittee.
 Police and the ever-present M. P.'s report comparatively little dis order on the teeming streets. Two newly dedicated USO centers, ons Tow xryI1S Sta ofI fo1s ATo groes, have helped the recreation problem, but the khaki-clad enlisted men still pack the streets on week. ends, and line the highways to Richmond, 25 miles away. Camp Lee authorities say 4,500 men get week. end passes each week, on an aver age.
 Out from town, Camp Lee sprawls across acres one trampled by war; ring Confederates and Yankees. Now, field maneuvers take southern farmland and northern millhand squarely alongside Petersburg Ma tional Military park, where the his- tory of the South'S last stand is peacefully enshrined under watch full federal care.
 Veteran Leads Parade
 Already choked with the Camp Lee boom, Petersburg is bearing part of the brunt of another. Con- struction of Camp Pickett at Black stone, 35 miles west has brought more hundreds of workmen to seek living quarters here. And now. thousands of trainees of the Army's medical corps are housed in per- manent buildings at Camp Pickett, swelling the total even more.
 Although it's World War IT that has boomed her economy and crowded her streets, Petersburg hasn't forgotten her share in other wars.
 Most of all she clings to her his- toric role as last citadel of the crumbling Confederacy.
 Visitors are still reminded of. and taken to the Civil War Shrines. More aptly than any other single action illustrated the spirit of Pet ersburg, when Camp Lee soldiers trooped in for this years Army day parade, the soldiers of today, and yesterday, were led by Homer At kins-an aging, but still spry, leader in the thinning ranks of the Confederate veterans.