Columbia’s historic WW I boxcar has found a home | The State

The historic World War I boxcar that’s been on display for decades at Columbia’s American Legion Post 6 is taking a ride to Bishopville.

The South Carolina Cotton Museum has hammered out an agreement to transfer the boxcar, a gift from France to South Carolina after World War II, to the Lee County Veteran’s Museum, which is housed at the cotton museum.

“We thought it would be a great addition to our veteran’s museum,” executive director Eddie Grant said

During both World Wars I and II, the narrow gauge boxcars were a main mode of transportation in France and much of the rest of Europe. They were called Forty and Eights because they were big enough carry 40 men or eight horses.

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The boxcars moved troops, hauled supplies, evacuated wounded and, in their darkest use, transported Jews and other victims of the Holocaust in World War II to concentration camps.

Four years after the war, France shipped 49 ceremonial boxcars in a “gratitude train” to the United States, one to each of the then-48 states and the District of Columbia, filled with gifts as thanks for America’s participation in the war and the country’s aid afterward.

France was leveled during the war. So in 1947, a group in Los Angeles filled up eight boxcars with donated food, clothing and other supplies to be shipped to France. Word got out, and by the time the “freedom train” reached New York, there were 700 boxcars filled with $40 million in donations.

The gratitude train was a gesture thanks for that private aid drive. Each boxcar was filled with 52,000 gifts, from food to artwork to toys.

Today, many of those boxcars are on display in memorial parks, state museums and other public places in each state. But South Carolina’s is in the parking lot of the American Legion Post 6 on Pickens Street in Columbia, largely unknown and unnoticed.

Last month, The State reported on the American Legion post’s effort to find a more suitable home for the boxcar, prompting the Lee County museum to contact the legion.

Darlene Walton of Cayce, a spokesperson for the statewide Fourty and Eight organization, said the museum is a suitable home.

"I think its an excellent spot because they have our history at heart,” she said. “It will be given its due honor.”

The American Legion was formed in 1919, after World War I. The Forty and Eight subset of the legion was made up of Legion officers who served in France, but the subset later opened up to anyone who was invited. It was the Forty and Eight group that was appointed caretakers of the “gratitude train” box cars in 1949.

Moving the boxcar to the Lee County Veteran’s Museum keeps that commitment alive, because the museum is also home to the Lee County American Legion and VFW and their ladies auxiliaries.

The museum plans to move the boxcar on a lowboy trailer. Museum officials are presently looking for crane to lift the box car. Museum officials hope the boxcar can be moved within a a month or two.

“We want to move it without dismantling it,” Grant said

Grant said the museum plans to mount the boxcar on railroad tracks adjacent to the museum and build a depot-like structure around it. Museum officials are seeking information about what happened to all the gifts.

“That would be a great addition to the display,” Grant said.

The American Legion Post 3 in Greenville was the original caretaker of the boxcar before it was transferred to Columbia in the 1980s. Peter Butchart, a former member of the post, said the gifts were distributed to individuals and organizations all across the state.

He remembers recopying a notebook listing where the gifts went.

“I don’t remember much about it,” Butchart said. “But some went to people like Strom Thurmond.”

Efforts to reach the Greenville post were unsuccessful.

Grant asks that anyone with information about a gift or gifts contract him at (803) 484-4497.

“That would be a great addition to the display,” Grant said.