Between Christmas 1941 and April 1946, volunteers from North Platte and surrounding Nebraska communities ran a canteen inside the Union Pacific station that served free food and hospitality to every troop train passing through. At its peak, as many as a hundred trains a day stopped here — North Platte was a major junction on the transcontinental line — and the volunteers met them all, around the clock.
The original station is long demolished, but a memorial marker near the current depot site commemorates the effort. The Lincoln County Historical Museum (a short drive away) has a substantial exhibit on the canteen with photographs, personal accounts, and donated artefacts. It is one of the more moving pieces of World War II home-front history you will find in the American West.