Located 7 miles north of Line Pine on Highway 395, the Manzanar National
Historic Site contains evidence of several historical eras. The Paiute
and Shoshone people occupied the Manzanar area for centuries. American
Indian archeological sites are important parts of the Manzanar story.
In the late nineteenth century, a cattle ranching homestead flourished
here. In the early 1900's the town of Manzanar grew to be a thriving pear
and apple orchard community. By 1913, the city of Los Angeles completed
its aqueduct and owned 95% of the Owens Valley. The town of Manzanar was
then abandoned and the land remained vacant, until March 1942.
Two months after Pearl Harbor was bombed, President Roosevelt signed
an Executive Order calling for all those of Japanese ancestry to be placed
into relocation camps. Manzanar was one of those relocation centers, built
initially as a temporary center it became the first permanent relocation
center in the United States.
The
entire Manzanar detention facility encompassed 6,000 acres. The camp itself
consised of 36 blocks of wooden barracks confined within a one-square mile
area. In addition to the detention camp the facility consisted of adjacent
agricultural use areas, a reservoir, an airport, a cemetery and sewage
treatment plant. Of this area a rectangle of approximately 550 acres, containing
the living area for the internees and various administrative facilities,
was enclosed by barbed wire fences and secured by guard towers.
The 10,000 internees sought to establish some semblance of normal life
and beautified the barracks with gardens and ponds, and tendered the orchards
remnants which still remain today. Manzanar was the only camp to have an
orphanage, which housed 110 children.
When the camp was closed in late 1945, the wooden barracks and administration
buildings were sold at auction and removed from the site. Among the visible
remains is the camp auditorium, a large wood-frame building. In addition,
the stonework shells of the pagoda-like police post and sentry house and
portions of other building in the administrative complex remain,as do concrete
foundations and portions of the water and sewer systems throughout the
camp.
An annual pilgrimage, sponsored by The Manzanar Committee, is held on
the last Saturday of April near the cemetery monument. Former internees,
their descendants, friends and general public join for a day of remembrance,
education and rededication of the cemetery in religious (Christian and
Buddhist) Ceremonies.
As part of the Save America's Treasures millennium grant , the historic
perimeter barbed wire fence that enclosed the living area of the camp will
be rebuilt. Plans are underway to adaptively restore the Auditorium, reconstruct
one of eight guard towers, at least one barrack and internee-built garden
and ponds.
Significant collections of photos, drawings, painting, and artifacts associated
with Manzanar have been gathered over the years. Many of these can be seen
in the Eastern California Museum,
located five miles north of the camp in Independence.
