The historic Santa Fe building in downtown Amarillo
/ File
AMARILLO, TEXAS -- Back around the time of World War II, ordinary Americans were the face of freedom.
The U.S. Government documented more than 108,000 photographs for the Office of War Information as pro-allied propoganda.
"There's proaganda and then there's propaganda," said Dr. Bryan Vizzini, History Professor at West Texas A&M University. "It can be employed in a very positive fashion if you will. All countires employ propaganda and not just doing it in the time of war."
They were moments in time frozen forever, depciting life in the United States. Each region was archived ---more industrial in the East and more agricutlural across this region.
"These snapshots in time, you can literally trace the development," said Vizzini. "Not only the city as a physical presence but of the community."
There are shots from around the regiondocumenting life from small stores in New Mexico to people riding out tough times in Oklahoma.
Very few of the shots are in color, but there are a few from Amarillo and some of its more notable attributes.
Most were taken from atop the Santa Fe Building in 1943... Click on the video above to see the images.
"What did Amarillo look like when my grandparents were my age?" said Vizzini. "And I think, when you point out that Georgia was the far side of town, now we look to the west and say Georgia's just the beginning. In 20 years, it's going to feel like downtown."
There are more shots of grain elevators, the downtown rail yard and the yard master along with dozens of black and white photos that captured that single second in time. It's these kind of images that Dr. Vizzini hopes will be saved forever.
"I would hope increasing attention would be paid with digitizing so they would expect and even see greater use."
And all thanks to the now defunt Office of War Information thinking ahead of the times and giving us an opportunity to always look back at where we came from.
Click here for part one of this Pronews 7 Special Report.
