Topaz War Relocation Center "You Are Here" - Delta, UT
N 39° 25.083 W 112° 46.759
12S E 346831 N 4364680
This "You Are Here" is on a marker for the Topaz War Relocation Center, northwest of Delta, Utah at 10000 West 4500 North.
Waymark Code: WMBGF8
Location: Utah, United States
Date Posted: 05/19/2011
Views: 8
The camp opened 11 September 1942 although many barracks as well as the schools were not completed. Japanese-Americans from the San Francisco area, who had been housed at Tanforan Race Track since its hasty reconstruction for human inhabitants in March, were transported to Delta, Utah, by train. The population of the camp soon reached about 8,000. Once located, some internees finished building their own barracks and other structures at the site.
Internees arrived at Topaz with only what they could carry.
Two elementary schools, one junior/senior high school, and a hospital constituted the major structures of the camp. Administration buildings, warehouses, and government workers' housing were located in the first few blocks of the forty-two-block camp. The remaining blocks were for internee housing. Each block had twelve apartment buildings, a recreation room, latrines for men and for women, and a mess hall. The apartment buildings were sectioned into six apartments of different sizes to accommodate families of two, four, or more people. Larger families were sometimes given two apartments.
Apartments were heated by coal stoves, but cooking in the residential area was discouraged. Furniture for the apartments included only army cots, mattresses, and blankets. Some residents constructed rough tables and shelves out of scrap lumber left lying around the camp. The barracks, crudely constructed of pine planks covered with tarpaper as the only insulation, and sheetrock on the inside, provided little protection against the extreme weather of the semi-arid climate.
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