Topaz

One half of a restored barrack at the museum site in Delta. Realistic view of where and how the Japanese-Americans lived for 3.5 years in the Great Basin Desert. Some furnishing inside.

All the buildings at the site have been removed. Foundations and concrete slabs are found throughout the camp. It is 640 acres, one section measuring one-mile square. The government purchased 19,000 acres to farm, mostly dryland, and for animal facilities.

A scattered site of artifacts and relics. Strangely mystifying, like sitting still at Chaco Canyon and listening to the wind tell the story. You can see Jane Beckwith’s truck out in the background.

Much of the area as salvaged by area farmers when the camp closed down. They dug up the cast iron pipe (water and sewer) and left trenches throughout making travel up and down the geometric campsite difficult. A tree grew and died many years ago.

About 8,000 people lived here, behind the barbwire they installed to keep themselves captives of the US government. Their homes were standard and the landscape allowed to uniquely express who lived where. Lots of rock gardens, few flower gardens. Alkaline soil, little organic content, no water.

The front door stoop/step/threshold made by an interment Japanese American shows how they tried to make a prison camp their home. Right out the front doors you find the best artifacts as the mothers would clean and sweep everything out the front door.

A road to nowhere but the fence. Imagine 60 year ago, along this road were rows of clapboard barracks adorned with simple individual expressions of the earth.

The monument at the entry, built in 1976, continues to experience vandalism and disrespect. Look closely to see the four-wheeler tracks jumping the monument.

People have even been know to write their congressman to protest wording on the monument – and I don’t believe they are Japanese Americans. Most of the support for this historical site comes from California, not locals or statewide.