Camp Tulelake - Tulelake National Wildlife Refuge - Tulelake, CA
N 41° 58.157 W 121° 33.932
10T E 618857 N 4647360
Camp Tulelake was erected in the 1930s by the CCC and then converted into a POW camp to detain Italian and German POWs as well as 'disloyal' Japanese Americans during WWII.
Waymark Code: WMRWR9
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 08/14/2016
Views: 3
Located just off Hill Rd is a small parking area that contains a couple of interpretive displays that highlight this site's history over the years as a former CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) camp in the 1930s and then as a POW camp during WWII to detain Italian and German POWs as well as 'disloyal' Japanese Americans. One of the displays reads:
CAMP TULELAKE
1935-1942
CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS
This camp was built and staffed by the CCC, an organization that was established during the Great Depression by President Franklin Roosevelt to reduce unemployment and to preserve the nation's natural resources.
CCC worked took on many local prospects, including building new headquarters and a stone overlook for the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge, reconstructing the Clear Lake Dam, and constructing canals, dikes, roads, and rock walls.
1943
JAPANESE AMERICANS
For several months in 1943, over 100 'disloyal' Japanese Americans were separated from the internment center at Newell (nearby) and were housed at Camp Tulelake.
Internees cleaned up the camp's buildings and grounds, installed new doors and windows, and repaired electrical fixtures and plumbing
During this time many Japanese Americans also worked at the Wildlife refuge headquarters, maintaining the landscape and buildings.
1944-1946
ITALIAN & GERMAN POWs
Several months after the Japanese Americans were moved from the buildings, the camp came to life again as housing for the Italian and German prisoners of war.
The Tulelake Growers Association requested that POWs help local farmers harvest crops, in order to offset the critical shortage of field labor during World War II.
In May of 1944, 150 Italian prisoners converted the camp into a full-blown POW camp that held up to 800 German prisoners between June 1944 and the end of the war.
CAMP TULELAKE WAS ADDED TO THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES IN 1986. PLEASE HELP US PRESERVE THIS PIECE OF HISTORY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS BY VIEWING THE BUILDINGS FROM A DISTANCE.
Another display next to this one also highlights this former camp's history and reads:
Camp Tulelake began as a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in 1935. Until 1942 it housed young men from around the nation who were employed to rehabilitate and expand the use of public lands. During World War II the camp was used by the War Relocation CAuthority (WRA), first in February 1943 when it as used to hold men from the Tule Lake War Relocation Center who refused to answer the "loyalty questionnaire." It was used a second time in October 1943 to house 243 Japanese Americans from other War Relocation Centers who were brought in to harvest crops at the Tule Lake Segregation Center. In 1944, after local farmers petitioned the US Government for addition farm labor, 150 Italian Prisoners of War (POW) converted the buildings into a POW camp. Soon 800 German POWs arrived at the camp and worked in the Tulelake Basin helping local farmers tend and harvest their fields.
Today, this former camp only retains a few preserved buildings (a paint shop, workshop, a single barracks and the kitchen/mess hall) and is only available for tours during the summer months by contacting the Tulelake Butte Valley Fairgrounds Museum.