The third annual Canteen Festival took over downtown Saturday and continues Sunday. Vendors and musicians descended on the historic Canteen District to provide entertainment for guests.
Jody Ingalls, founder of Kentucky-based Encore History, offered historic and patriotic songs.
She and her family travel the country performing historical interpretations as World War II figures. She opened with “The Star Spangled Banner,” transitioning to old hit music and even performed some Christmas tunes.
Her husband, David Ingalls, walked across the Canteen District dressed as Lt. Col. Miller. He wore one of Miller’s old uniforms. He served in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Egypt as a medic.
According to Ingalls’ son, Karsten, Miller shipped out in 1943. Before that, he served in Fort Knox in Kentucky. He was also dressed in another of Miller’s uniforms.
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Karsten said a relative didn’t know what do do with Miller’s uniforms after he died, so they gifted them to the Ingalls family to historically interpret as a WWII soldier wherever they traveled.
“Our family loves history,” Karsten said, “and I’ve always been fascinated by WWII, so I just love doing stuff like this.”
North Platte, he said, is one of the furthest trips the family has made thus far.
The weekend’s events celebrate the historic World War II North Platte Canteen and is helping to raise funds for an an expanded Canteen exhibit at the Lincoln County Historical Museum, said organizer and museum Director/Curator Jim Griffin.
“We want to make it’s an immersive exhibit that really teaches the next generations about the importance of this story,” he said. “And it’s impact on not just local history but state and national history. The fact that soldiers came from every state in the United States, when they came through here they got fed and they were told ‘thank you.’ And when they left here, they knew why they were fighting the war. That’s directly from their letters that have come back to us.”
Griffin said he is working with an architect and hopes to raise $4 million to build the addition to the museum. He said he wants to commission an AI hologram to interact with the public, hypothetically posing as Canteen volunteers.
The expanded exhibit will be immersive with smells and sounds, Griffin said, and will help tell the story about how the war affected all of Lincoln County.
It will also include scale replicas of the U.P. Depot’s dining room — the “Canteen room” — and trainside front.
The plan is tentative and will be a long-term fundraising project for the museum. It will be built “when we raise the money,” he said.
The Canteen Festival concludes at 2 p.m. Sunday with the third annual presentation of “A Sentimental Musical Journey,” at the Neville Center for the Performing Arts, 301 E. Fifth St.
Seating is limited, according to the festival’s webpage at visitnorthplatte.com. Tickets are $18 for adults, $12 for students and $35 for VIP admission and may be purchased at northplattecommunityplayhouse.com.
