Bolton Hall Museum

JUNE 2017 In This Issue Bolton Hall Museum is hosting a very Ten years ago, Lloyd became involved special exhibit in July telling the story with LLHS member, Paul Tsuneishi and of the WWII internment of Japanese, others, seeking to establish recognition Only the Italian and German immigrants at the for those individuals who were interred 1-3 Oaks Remain Tuna Canyon Detention at the TCDS on the site of Tujunga’s Station (TCDS) in Tujunga. Verdugo Hills Golf Course. In recent years, a coalition of interests Plant Sale Only The Oaks Remain is an representing Japanese, Italian and 3 Wrap-up extraordinary museum quality traveling German immigrants interred at TCDS exhibit created by the TCDS was formed for the purpose of Spotlight On... 4 Coalition which is being displayed at a advancing plans for a memorial on the number of southern California site of the TCDS. In 2013, Los Angeles locations this year including the City Council approval was obtained for Current Exhibit 4 Japanese-American Museum in Los recognition of the site as Los Angeles Angeles and the site of the Manzanar City Cultural Heritage Monument Docents 5 Relocation facility. The Bolton Hall #1039. Lloyd Hitt has served as Co- Museum Grand Opening Celebration Chair of the TCDS Coalition and his and exhibit viewing has been scheduled research and presentations were vital to Birthdays 5 for Sunday, July 9th, 2017 starting at 6 moving the memorial project forward p.m. at Bolton Hall Museum and the and obtaining the Los Angeles City 4th of July public is invited. RSVP’s are being Monument designation. 5 requested due to widespread Parade community interest in the exhibit and the special activities 2nd Saturday scheduled for the event. 6 Program Following is an introduction to Only the Oaks the Los Angeles Cultural 7 Heritage recognition and the Remain Exhibit exhibit creation and the story of the Tuna Canyon Detention Station location and its importance in the history of our community and the City of Los Angeles. The article which follows was written by Dr. Lloyd Hitt. Dr. Hitt is a Lifetime Member of Little Landers Historical Photo used with the permission of David Scott, the Scott Society and served as Family and Little Landers Historical Society. Photos may not President from 1999 to 2001. be used unless written permission has been obtained from the Little Landers Historical Society. The following history of the Tuna Camp location, first Early assignments were forest access roads and written by Dr. Hitt in 2015, has been edited for space and water retention tanks of two to five thousand gallon to accommodate current events. capacity in the Angeles National Forrest above . Sunland-Tujunga and La Crescenta. With the arrival Tuna Canyon Detention Station of the new CCC Company 902 in April 1934, their assignments changed to include vast private holdings Before and After in the Verdugo Hills, San Gabriel Mountains, and the By Dr. Lloyd Hitt Crescenta Valley to restore hardwood groves and drainage after severe fires and flooding throughout the The fifty-eight acres occupied by the former Verdugo region in 1933-1934. Company 902 cleared brush, cut Hill Golf Course have seen more far reaching changes numerous fire trails and culverts, and built steel forest than any other area of Sunland/Tujunga. The winding trail fire towers. A road and picnic sites were built up to used by the Padres from the San Gabriel Mission to the the Big Tujunga Dam. Above all else, the local San Fernando Missions, moved north up through La community developed a deep respect for their fire- Baras Canyon what is now Tujunga Canyon Road, fighting abilities in protecting them from seasonal perhaps stopping at Sister Elsie Well for water before fires. Company 902 would stay until 1941 when the traveling west through Rancho Tujunga and the Big Depression ended with defense jobs, enlistment in the Tujunga Wash and turning South to the San Fernando military services, and the threat of war. For the young Mission. The Tongva camped under the oak trees fed by men who came through the Tuna Camp it was a springs and creeks along the Verdugo Mountains. positive experience for both them and the community. Tiburcio Vasquez, who was probably one of the most The Army tried to close the Tuna CCC Camp in early notorious bandits in California, drove his stolen horses 1940 because the young men were joining the military and cattle up through the canyon to hide in the San or finding jobs, but the community fought this action Gabriel Mountains. In the late 1800’s farmers like Phillip because the Company played an important part in Begue bought the land to farm and then, around 1906, fighting forest and brush fires. sold a southern section to Charleston Dow, a farmer. Rows of vineyards covered the slopes to the base of Sister Unlike other camps that had been dismantled, the Elsie and Twin Peaks in the Sierra Madre Mountains, as Tuna Camp remained to serve as a gateway for they were known at the time. The only break in the incarceration of German, Italian, and most often, vineyards was Foothill Boulevard known then as Japanese immigrants living on the West Coast. 90.4% Michigan Avenue. During WWI much of the grape of those interred were Japanese. As of December 7th, harvest was bought by the US government and used in a 1941, the CCC camp was closed and became the Tuna fermentation process to make cordite for bullets and Canyon Detention Center operated by the Immigration artillery shells. and Naturalization Service (INS). The INS took charge of the camp and by December 16th the first In 1933 Charleston Dow originally leased 10 acres on prisoners were delivered by the FBI. The camp was no the South end of his land to the Army for $30 a month for longer what it had been as the Army buildings were the construction of one of two Civilian Conservation now bordered with a ten-foot high steel fence with Corps (CCC) camps, under President Franklin D. barbed wire on the top. Guard towers stood at Roosevelt, to be built in the Tujunga area. Local intervals, with the fence area under lights. A small carpenters built eleven wooden WWI Army buildings contingent of armed INS personnel and civilians stood with seven barracks, mess hall, administration building, guard. No one was to get closer than 10 feet of the office building, and the infirmary on the east side along fence and only English was to be spoken on visitors’ the Verdugo Wash. The wash was a creek draining day. Unlike the Santa Anita Racetrack Assembly Blanchard Canyon and followed the rutted Tujunga Center, only heads of households were brought in. Canyon Road from Monte Vista. There were also garages, a blacksmith shop, and shelters for equipment. The CCC The FBI started investigations in the early 1940's program proved to be very popular and enrollment by especially of those living near the coast or industrial young men quickly filled the camps. Enrollees of sites. They were the first prisoners brought to the Company 548 at Tuna Camp probably arrived before the camp on December 16th, 1941. Immigrants from buildings were finished and would have lived in military Germany, Italy and Japan were considered suspect tents. They varied in age from 17-25, signed up for six to because of their nationality. If they were educated, twenty-four months and were paid $30 a month of which worked along the coast, active in their communities, $25 was sent home to the parents. The Army ensured involved in the martial arts, teachers, Buddhist, or community leaders, their loyalty was even more water, transportation, and local availability of food supplies. suspect. The hearings held at the Tuna Canyon Detention Center determined if you would be free with certain restrictions, such as curfews, or sent on to PLANT SALE Wrap-Up concentration camps if you were German or Italian. A th few Italian fishermen were forced to move away from On April 29 , plant buyers gathered at the coast but were allowed back October 12th, 1942. If C&M Printing on Commerce Avenue for you were Japanese, the hearings decided if you were to the 2017 LLHS Plant Sale. The sale join your family at one of the many concentration opened on time at 9 a.m. despite damage camps or be sent to special concentration camps to caused by the overnight windstorm. Early spend the war years separated from your family. There volunteers pitched in to clear the damaged was no evidence submitted at the hearings, only canopies and set up overturned tables and chairs. For- conjecture. For instance, if you were Japanese and you tunately, very few plants were damaged and the buy- were a fisherman working off the West Coast, you ers were greeted to an array of beautiful decorative knew too much and were a risk to America's security. It and functional plants, including some vegetables. is interesting to note, the ten people convicted of espionage for Japan, from 1940 to 1945, were We thank all the donors and volunteers that helped Caucasian. None were Japanese. make this sale a success. And a very special thanks goes to Cindy Cleghorn and Mark Seigel of C&M Most people were not aware of the thousands of Printing for graciously loaning space alongside the German, Italian and Japanese imprisoned in the U.S. C&M building to us for the sale. who were from Mexico, Central America and South America. They were brought to America to trade for Donors of Plants & Other Items American civilians captured by the Axis powers.

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