President's Article

German Soldiers, Pimentos, and a Griffin Mystery

by Drew Payne

President, Griffin-Spalding Historical Society

Did you know that German prisoners of war were held in Griffin during World War II, around 1944–1945—just down Meriwether Street from our own Bailey-Tebault House?

Historical camp listings identify Griffin as the site of a seasonal prisoner-of-war camp associated with Camp Wheeler near Macon. Across Georgia, prisoners helped address wartime labor shortages, including in food-processing operations.

My mother, Margaret Allen Payne, remembered walking past German prisoners standing behind a fence on the property directly behind Fourth Ward School, between Poplar and Meriwether Streets.

And the location raises an intriguing question.

Almost directly across Meriwether Street, beside the railroad tracks, stood Pomona Products, one of Griffin’s major employers. Its factory processed pimento peppers, peaches, sweet pickled peaches, and other canned foods, employing as many as 1,000 workers during peak seasons.

With so many Americans away serving in the military, labor was scarce. German POWs are documented as having worked in Georgia canning operations. Could the prisoners held in Griffin have worked at Pomona Products, practically across the street? The location and seasonal nature of both operations suggest a connection worth exploring.

We do not yet know exactly what the camp looked like. Temporary Georgia POW camps sometimes used tents, but we have not located a photograph or site plan of Griffin’s installation.

The property has its own layered history. A February 1946 Griffin Daily News article described the tract behind Fourth Ward School as a former site for traveling circuses. It was then leased for a trailer community for returning veterans. Meriwether Homes, a public housing development, was built in the area in 1952; today the neighborhood is home to the newer Park Pointe development.

The former Pomona Products building still stands nearby and is now associated with the Plott family’s business.

Now we need your help! Do you or your family remember the POW camp? Did anyone work at Pomona Products during the war? We would welcome photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, or recollections that could help us tell this remarkable Griffin story more fully.

Sometimes an important chapter of local history begins with a memory of something seen just down the street.