Google Earth Community: War Relocation Agency

The Heart Mountain Relocation Center was located in Park County, in northwest Wyoming, 12 miles northwest of the town of Cody. Situated on terraces of the Shoshone River, the relocation center lies at 4700 ft elevation, within open sagebrush desert. Heart Mountain, a detached limestone fault block rising to 8123 ft elevation 8 miles to the west, forms a dramatic backdrop to the relocation center.

The relocation center reserve encompassed 46,000 acres (Figure 6.1). The adjacent Vocation railroad siding and existing Bureau of Reclamation irrigation developments likely influenced the location choice; construction was begun June 15, 1942, with a crew of 2,000 workers. The first evacuees, from California, Oregon, and Washington, arrived August 11, 1942, and the center was in operation until November 10, 1945. With a maximum population of 10,767, the center was the third largest city in Wyoming. Local residents recall that it was one of only a few communities in the state to have electricity. (More...)

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Visit the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation.

Heart Mountain was the destination for American citizens of Japanese ancestry living in what was to become California's Silicon Valley.

Family in Front of Farmhouse in Mountain View, California. Members of the Shibuya family are pictured at their home before evacuation. The father and the mother were born in Japan and came to this country in 1904. At that time the father had $60 in cash and a basket of clothes. He later built a prosperous business of raising select varieties of chrysanthemums which he shipped to Eastern markets under his own trade name. Six children in the family were born in the United States.

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Edited by seer (01/05/04 11:01 AM)

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