From the Alvin and Rosalie Sara Check studio, PBS Kansas Presents Positively Kansas, it's time for Positively Kansas.

Coming up, thousands of soldiers, miles of barbed wire and a silent prairie.

Pulling back the curtain on the city of captives that brought the front lines of World War Two to the Kansas wheat fields.

Plus the tools that bind us.

We're in Kiowa to meet the family that's been holding the world together for nine generations, through the ancient art of rope making and the feeding frenzy below the surface.

Mike Blair shows us why fall not spring is the best time to cast a line in the Kansas Wild.

All of that right now on Positively Kansas.

And.

The Kansas prairie holds fascinating stories that get overlooked or sometimes forgotten as time passes.

80 years ago, the front lines of World War Two stretched deep into the American heartland not with bombs, but with barbed wire.

Chris Frank takes a look at the city of captives under the Kansas sky that brought a war.

On the other side of the globe.

Very close to home.

Just a three mile drive outside Concordia stands alone.

Guard tower.

A reminder of a time when this quiet prairie town held thousands of German prisoners of war.

I'm sure there's a large number of people live in Kansas that didn't have any idea there were prisoner war camps immediately behind this tower.

More than 300 structures once stood in this cornfield.

Barracks, fences, watchtowers.

A small city surrounded by barbed wire.

A few concrete foundations remain where buildings once stood.

I'm Barbara Shin, curator here at the P.O.W.

camp Concordia.

And this is Lowell Mae.

We're both members of the camp Preservation society.

The Camp preservation society works to keep the camp story alive.

The museum, housed in one of the camps food warehouses.

One of the few original buildings still standing.

The Japanese dropped bombs, torpedoes, and fired mercilessly at the Pacific Fleet and aircraft bases.

December 7th, 1941.

The Japanese Navy's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor thrust the United States into World War Two.

The war had been raging for two years in Europe and the Far East.

Suddenly, plans had to be made not only to fight the war, but to also house enemy combatants taken prisoner.

April of 1942, the government made a study of five sites in Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri on possible locations for what they called enemy alien internment camps.

Lowell May wrote the only full length book on the history of Camp Concordia.

May says folks in the Cloud County city lobbied to get a camp.

The people in Concordia wanted the camp because you have to remember they were still coming out of the depression.

It would be a boon for the city, for a town still recovering from the Great Depression.

War meant jobs.

Folks here were first told it probably wouldn't happen.

Then suddenly in February 1943, construction began within three months.

Camp Concordia was built, and soon German prisoners were arriving at the Concordia Depot.

They didn't learn until the camp was under construction that it was going to be a prisoner of war camp.

Reality hit when prisoners started arriving by train.

Some residents worried.

Would these men escape?

Would they be dangerous?

When the first camp first came here, some people were scared.

One woman told me that they were afraid that there would be an escape, and they'd be murdered in their beds at night.

Kansas had 16 prison camps during World War Two.

Camp Concordia was by far the largest.

They started to build it for 3000, and while it was being built to enlarge it to 4000.

Photographs show how large Camp Concordia was.

German prisoners remarked after the war how surprised they were to be confined in what they described as apartments.

It was a big, big thing.

Brought a lot of money into Concordia.

These photos were taken from atop the camp's water tower.

The tower still stands.

Its current owner saying it was too well built to tear down easily.

It took three days by train from the east coast to reach Kansas.

Many prisoners thought the Americans were taking them in circles.

They couldn't believe the country could be that big.

They soon learned how big the United States is, and most of them were probably 90% of the German prisoners were perfectly happy to set out the war, and the people would be a camp.

Prisoners were happy.

They were no longer in battle.

And Kansas farmers were happy to get a badly needed labor supply.

Since young Americans were sent away to fight, they were considered excellent workers.

I had more than one farmer tell me that, even when they were told to take a break, they would keep working.

The P.O.W.

years were paid for their work.

The Geneva Convention said we had to pay prisoners of war the same as we paid American soldiers.

And they could spend that money on cigarets and beer back at the canteen.

Prisoners purchase radios for entertainment.

Yes.

They could buy radios in the canteen.

Their favorite song was Don't Fence Me In Here.

We've had, former prisoners tell us that their favorite song was Don't Fence Man.

Don't Fence Me In was a popular song by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters.

The irony was not lost on them.

No one friends me in.

No, I don't you fence me in.

Both May and shun say the prisoners were well taken care of, including for their medical needs.

This is a hospital complex, 177 bed hospital.

And it had everything you could want in a hospital.

It had, x ray.

It had psychology, it had dental, it had a medical library.

It had surgery.

German Army physician shown here with one nurse were among the captives.

Officers were separated from noncommissioned P.O.W.

by the Geneva Convention.

Officers could not be compelled to work.

So some spent their time at painting, and the museum has a collection of their artwork signed by the German by the Cou chancellor.

The camp also had a P.O.W.

university, where officers taught the classes, and cou gave them credit for it.

As for those who worked on farms, they became close to the farmers who employed them.

Even though farmers weren't supposed to be friendly or become familiar with the prisoners.

As one farmer told me, you can't work with somebody eight hours a day and not get to know something about them.

And so they did.

They became friends.

They exchanged letters after the war, and so much were they friends that when the war was over, some of the POW ws asked to return to the Kansas farms to work.

There's numerous stories of farmers sponsoring the prisoners that worked for them.

May and Schoen say prisoners had plenty to eat here.

They had criteria, for minimum calories a day that was established by the Geneva Convention.

Had to feed, prisoners, just like we fed the American soldiers.

And they say often the farmers they worked for fed the prisoners more food while on work breaks, and they're supposed to feed them outside.

But it wasn't long before they were going into the house and setting down around the dining room table and having a roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, whatever.

That also speaks of how comfortable farmers got with their prison labor.

But there was one noted cultural difference that stood out the Germans wouldn't eat corn.

They said corn was for pigs and chickens.

And yet they all raved about corn flakes in the diary that we published.

One of them said, thank you, Mr.

Kellogg.

When they left America, may says there were two escapes from camp Concordia.

But he says the escapees didn't get far and were quickly recaptured.

In another incident, a truck hauling prisoners rolled over on a Concordia street, knocking out the guard and driver.

The prisoners could have fled, but instead simply waited on a curb to be picked up.

In fact, I ask one prisoner about escape and he looked at me like I was crazy.

And he said, why would I want to escape?

I had a place to live, a warm place to live.

I had clothing, I had medical care.

I had good food.

Why would I want to escape?

The Pope was settled into life on the prairie.

There was a prison brass band and an orchestra.

The high school band director would come out to the camp and direct the orchestra.

And the German director would go down to the high school and direct the high school orchestra.

So that was kind of an exchange.

There is the sad story of Captain Felix, Troop Shu and Afrika Corps veteran troops who kept a diary with criticism of Hitler and the war.

Nazi loyalists in the camp discovered the diary at night.

They had a kangaroo court and they found him guilty of not being a good German.

And they told him that he would either do the right thing or his family would suffer either then or after the war.

And so they put him in a room with a rope and a chair, put guards on the door, and he hung himself.

May says after that, 40 Nazis were relocated to an Oklahoma camp that specialized in hard core cases.

He says that improved morale amongst the Concordia P.O.W.

is Colonel Colonel Robert Hogan, senior officer of the prisoner of war reporting, sir.

Perhaps you recall the American sitcom Hogan's Heroes about American P.O.W.

in German camps.

It came up in one of May's interviews, a former Concordia prisoners for his book.

And he said, you know, the Hogan's Heroes.

And I said, yes, I'm familiar with that.

He said, that was Camp Concordia.

So in what way?

I think it just, you know, nothing was harsh.

They were they were treated decently.

Yeah.

Their guards and, prisoners, some familiarity.

Their camp Concordia held one captive who decades later, would become one of the wealthiest billionaires in the world.

His name?

Reinhard Moen.

While he was here in the States as a prisoner, he learned about book of the month clubs.

And when he went back to Germany, he took over the publishing company, and he started the book of the Month Club.

Huge success.

There were other successes.

Prisoner Carl Gassman took classes at the university and later became a successful architect.

Others returned to Kansas and became U.S.

citizens.

Their generational descendants remain here.

Soon after war's end, the camp was dismantled.

Most buildings were repurposed or scrapped.

The buildings are gone, but what has remained are the trees the prisoners planted back in the 1940s.

Think of them as living monuments that have outlasted the barbed wire and barracks that once defined this landscape.

What began as a necessity of war left a lasting mark on this community.

Shaping lives on both sides of the fence and leaving a legacy still felt generations later.

This is Chris Frank for Positively Kansas.

Once a place built for war, Camp Concordia became a place where enemies worked side by side, where fear gave way to understanding and where history still grows.

On the Kansas prairie, it's an ancient craft dating back to biblical times.

Ropes have always been the tools that hold the world together, and one Kansas company makes some of the best on the planet.

Chris Frank weaves together a story that's become a family legacy.

This is the custom rope factory in Kiowa.

Now, this building might not look like much, but believe me, the rope that is manufactured here is sold all around the world.

The custom rope factory operates in the oldest still standing storefront in Kiowa.

The building looks like it survived the 1800s, along with its boardwalk in front.

But inside is where the magic happens.

Now, one doesn't need the fanciest of buildings to make an up to date version of an ancient tool that sold around the world.

Jay, Oklahoma.

Jay I started to rope Mike in there.

You can find buddy Williams, better known as the Rope Man, in his front office when not watching the guys next door making this custom rope.

And you'll almost always find him under his signature black top hat.

Williams was born in Chautauqua County, near the town of Elgin on the Kansas Oklahoma state line.

Elgin, now a fading ghost town, had several hundred living there when Williams grew up in the area.

He was named Sylvester Gustavo's Williams, but goes by Buddy in Elgin.

The family business was tree trimming, which requires ropes, of course.

So his dad taught young buddy rope making.

I've been doing that since I was eight years old.

It didn't take buddy long to figure he could make money making rope.

I was making a lot of times on a weekend.

More than a lot of guys made working for a rancher or something.

The field family now used to kid 8 or 9 years old, and I was.

All I had to do is learn to make money and make and rope with money.

For many years, rope making was something buddy did on the side while he was doing other things, including being a racehorse jockey, a road race, horses, and that was licensed in 17 states.

And when each race was over, he took orders for rope.

I could make lower riding horses and get involved in making rope and sell arms of the ranchers and stuff on the horses, and they'd come to me and say, make me three reels.

Why you didn't work.

And they would buy one.

Elgin isn't far from Pawhuska, Oklahoma, a cattle ranching area.

Williams would go to a Huskies cattle sell barn to sell ropes.

I sell rope to the cows they put on the weekends.

Then Johnson would come home.

That's Ben Johnson, actor, stuntman and world champion rodeo cowboy.

Johnson would return to Oklahoma when not working in Hollywood, and he'd always buy everything ahead live.

That's just part of the Rope Man's colorful history, a history still being made as these strands of twine are pulled along the track, then twirled to make new ropes and new stories.

Even before rope runners like Juan Archuleta were making ropes here, Williams was demonstrating rope making and entertaining crowds at the state Fair in Hutchinson.

But he started, making rope at the, Kansas State Fair before we even moved here.

And, it was a huge success with the antique machines where people could actually make something themselves on the rope.

But he also entertained crowds at Dollywood in Tennessee.

He would combine rope tricks and storytelling that further sold his brand.

Now, entertaining crowds is one thing.

Building a viable, long lasting business is another.

Williams had a commercial rope making operation in El Dorado, but he sold.

It, took a five year non-compete break, then moved to Kiowa.

Now, family members like son in law John Fogerty work in the manufactory.

Archuleta is lining up and preparing the strands of twine to be wound into a custom made rope.

The process is called spinning the rope.

He's spinning the rope up to get it tight.

Raise it up off the ground.

That way we can see if there's any loops that need to be tucked in so there's no imperfections in the rope.

It's 12,500 pound tensile strength rope for like a small car or SUV type thing.

The way we string these up is we do three ropes at a time.

We basically pull them out to make a 66, 68ft rope, and then we'll cut it into thirds to make three individual 20ft rope sets our standard length.

The building doesn't need to be wide.

It's narrow for a plant site, but it needs to be long enough for the rope being made.

Their rope is made from polypropylene twine, known for its strength and durability.

The birth of the rope starts in this rack with stacks of twine balls on a really good day.

Once we get really busy, we'll probably go through 100 balls of twine a day.

Sometimes a little bit more than that.

And they're 10,000ft rope balls.

More than 160 individual strands of twine can be pulled through these feeding holes at a time to be spun into a rope.

Once the rope is cut to its standard 20ft length, workers braid the ends.

They use a torch to melt the ends so the rope doesn't fray, and then they connect a hook where a ring is basically melting them together.

So if that tape was ever come down, the individual strands would come apart.

Break free.

Apart.

Now check out the orange hooks on the rack.

Those are for some heavy duty ropes to pull very heavy machinery that runs, 11 ton hook.

We stick them on a 125,000 pound strength rope.

It is a pretty good sized rope.

It's our most common.

Like, road grader size of rope.

Just think we're road graders.

Bulldozers and tractors in general have to work.

The equipment's work surface may turn from dry to muddy conditions, bringing the powerful and heavy machines to a halt.

It takes a strong rope to pull the machines out, and the rope factory makes even stronger ropes.

That's actually 125,000 pound tensile strength is, just under four times smaller than the largest rope that we make, the largest rope made, and we make it 600,000 pound principal strength.

He says those largest of ropes are capable of pulling or trucks out of the mining pit with a bulldozer.

So to give you a size comparison here, this is our 20ft, 25,000 pound tensile strength rope for a half tonne truck.

It's just a little bit larger than the ring that we put on the 200,000 pound tensile strength rope.

Williams says even if the polypropylene rope breaks, it won't snap back and hurt anyone.

He says the company has never had a liability suit.

The business has custom in its name, so the factory also takes special order requests for odd sizes.

For example, they made a 100ft rope for a church camp that needed it for a tug of war competition.

But their main business is making vehicle tug ropes.

So daughter Tamara Bogota shows all the stores across the country where the Kiowa made rope sales at.

These yellow ones have multiple.

And as you zoom in, it's.

That's all of the dealers across the country.

The rope is sold at farm stores, auto parts stores and the like.

It is also sold in several foreign countries, including Canada and European countries.

Investors have offered to buy Williams out, but at least for now.

But he doesn't want to see the family cut ties with the multi-generational tradition of making rope in Kiowa.

This is Chris Frank for Positively Kansas.

Buddy the rope man.

William says the art of rope making runs deep, stretching back at least nine generations in his family.

We normally think of spring as the time of year when Kansas wildlife becomes more active.

But in this week's Kansas Wild Edge report, Mike Blair takes us back to autumn when fish get busy fattening up and fishermen get busy taking advantage of that.

Fishing like me.

Are you ready for William?

You'd better be ready when your float to fly fishing for wipers at Kansas Milford Reservoir.

This is the fall hotspot for white bass striped bass hybrids and boating.

Anglers with spinning gear take full advantage.

But if you want a ride, get into the water and try a two handed battle on these hard fighting game fish.

This isn't traditional fly fishing.

Big reservoirs aren't normally suited for float tubes, where windy conditions and boat traffic can make things dangerous.

But finding a cove that offers wind protection and quiet, shallow water can yield unforgettable fly rod action.

Mike Grunwald of Lincoln, Nebraska, fly fishes for fall wipers at Milford.

He makes it even more challenging by using a six way rod, rather than the 8 or 9 weights usually recommended.

He uses a 10 pound tippet to avoid breaking off on the hard slashing fight.

In open water.

And he arms his fly real with 200 yards of strong backing.

The fall Milford feeding spree depends on four inch gizzard shad, plentiful each year in the lake.

Cat fishers and game fishers alike use live bait or lures or flies that look like young shad.

Grunwald uses clouser minnows or lefty deceivers.

Flies tied on size four or larger hooks while float tubing.

At Milford, he looks for windy breaks, where 2 to 4ft of water near shore drop sharply into deeper areas.

If he can find a small inflow where current carries food, it can mean good wiper fishing throughout the day.

And surprisingly, he often catches large channel catch that hunt shad in these currents as well.

What to expect a shocking strike followed by runs up to 50 yards or more.

Wiper surge surface thrash and surge.

Again, a landing net is essential in catching wipers and large catfish that take a fly by jumping last ten minutes or longer.

This is Midwestern big game fishing at its best.

Gear up.

Choose your reservoir.

Access wisely and experience firsthand the excitement of fall wiper fishing at Milford Reservoir.

On a fly rod.

It's nothing short of crazy.

I'm Mike Blair for Positively Kansas.

That's a wrap for this week.

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I host the show for free because our local stories like these deserve to be told.

Thanks for watching.

I'm Sara Scott.

See you next time.