In 1943, Liberty County Agricultural Agent Gordon Hart and a rice farm labor committee consisting of J.M. Rich, Jimmy Trousdale, M. E. Peterson, Pat Boyt, and J.F. Clark negotiated an agreement with the U.S. Army to bring German prisoners of war, members of Rommel's Afrika Korps, to Liberty. Because wartime mobilization created labor shortages in the United States, important crops lay fallow and rotted in the fields, and during the peak of the rice harvest in 1943 up to 800 prisoners were housed at the Trinity Valley Exposition under local contracts with area farmers. The prisoners were paid $2.15 a day, were allowed to keep 80 cents for use at the camp PX, and the remainder went to the federal treasury. Liberty citizens and farmers interacted with the prisoners by dining at the camp and attending skits and performances, including a Christmas show. After the war ended in 1945, 100,000 German prisoners in Texas were repatriated, and the Liberty camp left the Trinity Valley Exposition with improved grounds and a cash surplus. Citizens of Liberty County considered the camp a success for agricultural interests, and both the Germans and the locals came to know and respect each other.