ANNISTON -- For more than 60 years, flecks of reds, blues and oranges have faithfully clung to the walls of Fort McClellan's Remington Hall like a drowning victim clutching to a life raft.

Now, according to state preservationists, new complaints are surfacing that water and mold may be endangering the murals, a charge the building's owner denies.

According to Alabama Historical Commission documents, signatures found on the murals suggest that two artists painted them in 1945, 30-year-old Albin Sagadin and 22-year-old Herbert Bolau.

Both men were part of a group of Italian and German prisoners of war that were captured in North Africa in 1943 and brought to Fort McClellan for internment, the documents said.Want the whole story?