This story is part of an ongoing series, Powering Change: Panasonic and De Soto. If you'd like to share your excitement or concerns about the electric vehicle battery plant, you can do so here.
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As Panasonic builds its new EV battery plant, it’s impossible to overlook the history of the land where it’s being built.
The 3,000 acre site holds the history of Johnson County's hand in the nation's wartime efforts.
For decades, Panasonic's land was home to the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant, which operated from the 1940s through the 1990s, and was the largest smokeless ammunition plant in the country.
During World War II, it brought thousands of workers — many of them women — to De Soto, Kansas.
"They built a 2,500-acre smokeless powder plant for ammunition for World War II," said Andrew R. Gustafson, curator at the Johnson County Museum.
The U.S. Army had specific reasons for choosing De Soto as the site for the facility.
"Sabotage would be very difficult as well, being in such a rural, isolated location," Gustafon said. "The terrain really played into it as well. And Kansas City, I think, was important too. It was really near rail lines that would go across the country."
At its peak, the plant employed over 12,000 workers, making it a major economic engine for the region.
Many of those workers were women, filling positions traditionally held by men who had left to fight overseas.
"There was a real home front war effort going on. So women were working in industry; they were working agricultural jobs, filling positions that had come up for the war effort, and also filling in where men had left to go overseas and fight," Gustafson said.
The plant set the county up for growth as well. When it opened, Johnson County’s population was just over 33,000. Within 20 years, the county’s population had skyrocketed.
“Johnson County's population in 1940 was little more than 33,000 people — when Sunflower Ordinance Works opens and employs 12,000 people, that's a third of the population of Johnson County moving in and working all in one place," Gustafson said. "Over the next 20 years, another 110,000 people move in."
For many long-time residents of Johnson County, the iconic water towers are the landmark of the plant, including Johnson County Chairman Mike Kelly.
"My dad would point to the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant because he actually worked here in the summertime when he was going to K-State," Kelly said.
The history of the site is not lost on the land.
"This is world history that's being affected by people who are working and living in Johnson County," Gustafson said.
It’s a reminder of what’s in store for the future.
"I’m going to be able to point south on K-10 and tell the story of the team that came together to build Panasonic, and what's come from that, and how that's really set Johnson County up for its future," Kelly said.
The connection between the past and present runs deep for many in the area.
Even I have my own tie to the historic site — my great-grandmother worked at the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant when it first opened.
Like so many women at the time, she was in her 20s, and with her husband serving in World War II, she took a job on the assembly line.
My grandmother still has her employee badge from 1945.
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KSHB 41 reporter Olivia Acree covers portions of Johnson County, Kansas. Share your story idea with Olivia.