In the fall of 1942, Spokane opens a USO (United Service Organizations) club to serve the large military population arriving in the area as it became an important air center during World War II. The Spokane USO club was the 1,200th in the United States. It comes on the heels of many activities and services provided to military personnel by Spokane citizens.
The Coming of the USO
The United Service Organizations (USO), a national organization, was incorporated on February 4, 1941. It was made up of six agencies: YMCA, YWCA, Salvation Army, Jewish Welfare Bureau, National Catholic Community Services, and Travelers Aid. Early in the war, the agencies had joined together under the name, United Welfare Committee for Defense. The committee sent President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) a telegram requesting a meeting with government officials to present its views. In December the committee met with Paul V. McNutt (1891-1955), head of the Federal Security Agency, whose responsibilities included recreation. Roosevelt in turn directed the Federal Security Agency to work with the welfare committee to come up with an effective program.
President Roosevelt, recognizing the interest of citizen-soldiers in seeking civilian recreation, believed that community-based programs could best satisfy this reality. Additionally, providing community recreation centers would reduce the perceived threat of large number of military personnel hanging out with nothing to do. Another advantage would be to enlist local civilian populations, especially women, in the war effort, giving them meaningful functions. The USO was in the position to hire professional staff, and this gave it a tremendous advantage in providing an effective recreational and morale-building organization for service men and women far from home during wartime.
Spokane Residents Welcome the Soldiers
Spokane became an important air center with airfields outside the city. This brought a large military population to the area. In the spring of 1941 Spokane residents got together and opened a Soldiers Service Center at W 820 Sprague Street. The center had a reading and writing area, library, games, and ready coffee and cookies. During the war the center served 1.4 million visitors.
Other local centers included an inter-church center on W Sprague, a Lutheran Service Center at N 106 Monroe, and a servicemen's club in the basement of the Cathedral of St. John. A Servicemen's Welcome House was located at 313 Riverside. Also, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) had a club on 3nd Avenue. All these centers offered relaxation and activities for service personnel on liberty.
Spokane's USO Clubs
A Spokane USO opened in the fall of 1942, and was the 1,200 USO club in the United States. In its first year, 3,000 junior hostesses attended dances, played games, and talked with more than 645,000 servicemen. The USO at 3rd and Monroe, in a bank building, had letter-writing desks, provided free stationery, a busy ping pong table, a swimming pool, showers with shaving supplies, voice recordings, sewing services, a dark room, dances, and telephones for long distance calling. When it closed in 1947 the visitor count had reached 1,959,403.
Black soldiers went to the George Washington Carver USO at 1st and Division strets and found similar activities. During 1944 the soldier visitor count here was 86,460. A third USO opened in January 1943. This downtown club located on the third floor of 411 W 1st Avenue featured a large dance floor.
Art in the Clubs
Original art hung in the Washington USOs created dramatic settings. The Pacific Northwest Art Association collected 50 original paintings to hang in USOs across the state. And some clubs obtained additional art.
The downtown Spokane USO had artist Leslie Cope (1913-2002) paint a large rural life mural. Cope, a prolific artist, was known for his landscapes of villages, covered bridges, and scenes of America. Cope, a camouflage specialist at a Spokane airbase, painted it while off duty. His next assignment took him to Guam where he sketched military life. After the war he had a number of one-artist shows and today his works are exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, and in other distinguished collections.
