Nazis in the Borough of North East

During World War II, in April of 1944 Camp Reynolds, located in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, was designated as a Prisoner of War Camp with four branch camps, one of which was located in the Borough of North East at the Lakeside Hotel. The other branches of the camps in Pennsylvania were in Kane, McKeon County; Marienville, Forest County; and Sheffield, Warren County. The original group of 300 prisoners arrived at Camp Reynolds in the first part of April 1944.

On September 24, 1944, more than 200 German prisoners of war (POW) were kept at the camp in North East, living in barracks at the Lakeside Hotel and working in the nearby canneries, one of which was the Sunshine Packing Company. An article in the Erie Daily Times, at the time, reported that 60 German prisoners-of-war staged a sit-down strike, refusing to process the fruits and vegetables at the height of the harvest season. The POWs were quickly and quietly removed and sent back to Camp Reynolds, the POW base camp in Mercer County. Canning plant officials called on Erie County women to assist in the fruit and vegetable canning before replacement POWs could be brought up from the branch camp of Camp Reynolds in Warren county several hours later. Said one canning company spokesman, "It boils down to choosing between coddling the prisoners or maintaining discipline at the plants."

After the war Camp Reynolds was deactivated, the Trimble Company of Pittsburgh was awarded the general contract for razing the hundreds of barracks. The city of Erie purchased 200 of them.