Few people realize it now, but there was a strong connection between Prohibition and Camp Dodge, the military compound north of Des Moines that was built in 1917 to train World War I soldiers.

Des Moines author William Friedricks tells the story in his Weitz family biography, “Constructing a Legacy: The Weitz Company and the Family Who Built It.”

After the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Friedricks noted, the Army announced plans to build 16 regional training camps. Des Moines officials wanted one of the camps and proposed expanding a small National Guard camp north of town into “a massive facility to house and train thousands of army recruits from Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota.”

The Army, Friedricks wrote, was leaning toward Fort Snelling, Minn., until officials pointed out that Iowa had passed a Prohibition law in 1916 — four years before the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawed alcoholic beverages nationwide.

“Workers in Iowa would not face the temptations of alcohol as they would elsewhere,” the locals argued.

Des Moines got the nod, and the original 30 Army barracks and two headquarters buildings were completed in just four months by a coalition of 13 Des Moines contractors led by Weitz. It was the fastest turnaround for any of the 16 Army camps, and with one exception the least expensive.

“Had we saloons in Des Moines, the Camp Dodge cantonment would not have been completed in the time required,” a Weitz family member said in 1918.

Friedricks’ 311-page family biography is a captivating chronology of local business history from the mid-1850s, when Karl Weitz, a German immigrant carpenter, arrived in Des Moines, up through the first decade of the 21st century.

Karl, who changed his name to Charles, figured Iowa’s newly designated capital city would grow quickly and provide lots of opportunity for tradesmen like himself.

In fact, it provided opportunity for four generations of Weitzes.

The Weitz book is Friedricks’ fifth about Des Moines business leaders, and it clearly draws on much that the Simpson College history professor learned from earlier efforts telling stories about The Des Moines Register, John Ruan, Frederick M. Hubbell and Bill Knapp. 

“Constructing a Legacy” was published a year ago by Business Publications Corp., which also publishes the Des Moines Business Record. I read it this summer, and I’ve been meaning to write about it, but the election kept getting in the way.

One of the more interesting aspects is how each generation reinvented the family construction business based on opportunities available at the time. 

Fred Weitz, son of the founder, dabbled in road-building and concrete brick-making during the 1920s, before his son, Rudy, was faced with rebuilding everything after the Great Depression.

“Rudy liked nothing better than serving on boards and associations,” Friedricks wrote.

Rudy’s son, also named Fred, is 87 today and is still deeply involved in the community.

Before selling the Weitz Co. to employees in the 1990s, Fred made the business a global player and created a separate collection of retirement communities under the name Life Care Services.

One of the charms of the book is that tucked between the pages are forgotten nuggets of local history. For example, the foundation for the Val Air Ballroom in West Des Moines was poured for a rubber manufacturing plant that went bankrupt in 1920 before the factory was complete.

Also, in 1918, not long after Camp Dodge was completed, Fred Weitz’s maid reported the family to police for speaking German, which Iowa Gov. William Harding had declared to be an illegal language during the war. The charge was dropped.