While many community members drive past Hughes Brothers daily, most people don’t know of the contributions the company had made, specifically 80 years ago during World War II.
Chantel Denker, the vice president of human resources at Hughes Brothers, said the company receives plenty of historical items left with the branding of Hughes Brothers on them. While items range from floorboards signed by John Morse Hughes, to ammunition boxes from various wars, Hughes Brothers has left an impact on community members, even those far from home.
When it comes to the impact in World War II, Hughes Brothers began taking an active role in war efforts starting in 1942 after being commissioned by the War Department, Denker said.
During this time, they manufactured more than one million ammunition boxes, 101,000 ammunition crates, anti-tank mine casings and triggers and wood trusses for B29 Superfortress bombers all within Seward, according to “A Centennial History of Hughes Brothers, Inc.”
With 64 employees braving the war overseas, the son of one employee, Ted Grigsby, wrote a letter to his father Art, saying he had found an ammunition box branded with the Hughes Brothers logo in France.
“I had to look twice before I believed it,” Grigsby said in his July 12, 1944, letter. “It makes me feel closer to home.”
Another letter that came into Hughes Brothers during the war, was from Tom Foster with the Cannon Company in the 134th Infantry in France. Foster sent a piece of wood cut from the ammunition box bearing the ‘HB’ stamp and said in his letter that seeing this greatly boosted morale and was seen throughout the Battle of Saint Lô.
Foster said the Cannon Company was largely composed of Nebraskans and that one member even went as far to write in chalk on an ammunition shell ‘To Adolf from Hughes Gang,’ according to “A Centennial History of Hughes Brothers, Inc.”
Even though the crate and several other items are no longer visible in their museum, Hughes Brothers has replicas of certain ammo crates, such as the ones referenced in both letters, various logos that would’ve been branded onto the wood and a history of the company and its many changes over the last 100 years.
