Historic Resource Study: Minidoka Interment Internment National
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Historic Resource Study Minidoka Internment National Monument _____________________________________________________ Prepared for the National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Seattle, Washington Minidoka Internment National Monument Historic Resource Study Amy Lowe Meger History Department Colorado State University National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Seattle, Washington 2005 Table of Contents Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………… i Note on Terminology………………………………………….…………………..…. ii List of Figures ………………………………………………………………………. iii Part One - Before World War II Chapter One - Introduction - Minidoka Internment National Monument …………... 1 Chapter Two - Life on the Margins - History of Early Idaho………………………… 5 Chapter Three - Gardening in a Desert - Settlement and Development……………… 21 Chapter Four - Legalized Discrimination - Nikkei Before World War II……………. 37 Part Two - World War II Chapter Five- Outcry for Relocation - World War II in America ………….…..…… 65 Chapter Six - A Dust Covered Pseudo City - Camp Construction……………………. 87 Chapter Seven - Camp Minidoka - Evacuation, Relocation, and Incarceration ………105 Part Three - After World War II Chapter Eight - Farm in a Day- Settlement and Development Resume……………… 153 Chapter Nine - Conclusion- Commemoration and Memory………………………….. 163 Appendixes ………………………………………………………………………… 173 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………. 181 Cover: Nikkei working on canal drop at Minidoka, date and photographer unknown, circa 1943. (Minidoka Manuscript Collection, Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument) Chapter 1 Introduction - Minidoka Internment National Monument The Minidoka Internment National Monument became the 385th unit of the National Park System on January 17, 2001. In Proclamation 7395, President Bill Clinton set apart and reserved federal land for the "purpose of protecting the historic structures and objects of historical interest contained therein."1 According to a planning document, the monument is "to provide opportunities for public education and interpretation of the incarceration of Nikkei (Japanese American citizens and legal resident aliens of Japanese ancestry) during WWII."2 The 73-acre monument protects and manages resources related to the original 33,000-acre Minidoka Relocation Center where the federal government interned 13,078 Nikkei during the war. The Minidoka Internment National Monument lies 21 miles southeast of Jerome, Idaho, on state highway 25, in Jerome County. On the Snake River Plain, the site is closer to Twin Falls than to Boise. In south central Idaho, Jerome County is surrounded by Cassia County and Minidoka County to the east, Twin Falls County to the south, Gooding County to the west, and Lincoln County to the north. National Park Service land in nearby counties includes the City of Rocks National Reserve, 80 miles south in 1 "Presidential Documents: Proclamation 7395 of January 17, 2001, Establishment of the Minidoka Internment National Monument," Federal Register Vol. 66, No. 14. (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 2001). 2 United States Department of the Interior, Minidoka Internment National Monument: Draft General Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement (Seattle, WA: National Park Service, 2005), Abstract. 2 Cassia County; the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, 40 miles west in Twin Falls County; and the Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, 60 miles northeast in Butte and Blaine Counties. Agriculture and irrigation projects near the site provide valuable context for understanding the Minidoka Relocation Center. The monument site is near two irrigation canals historically significant to the internment center. The North Side irrigation canal forms the southern border of the monument and formed the southern border of the center. During the war, the center could not draw water from the North Side Canal without the installation of a costly pumping facility. Consequently, the internees at Minidoka constructed a lateral from the Milner-Gooding Canal, located some five miles northwest of the site, to the internment facility. The Milner-Gooding Canal provided water for the internment center and for the crop fields at Minidoka. Figure 2. Canal drops and War Relocation Authority farm fields at Minidoka. (Western Archeological and Conservation Center) 3 This study develops themes to explain the monument's history and to show the center as one of several land uses over time. Organized chronologically, the themes within the study include early Idaho history, prewar settlement and development, racism and discrimination, camp life, and postwar settlement and land use. The role of the federal government is recurring and dominant within these themes. The government created the wartime relocation centers deep in the American interior on federal land. However, Minidoka reaches beyond a federal land use study. Studying the site within a broader agricultural, military, and ethnic history enriches and clarifies the story. While the site is best known as a wartime relocation and internment center, the goal of this study is to develop themes in order to assist managers and interested readers in understanding the Minidoka Internment National Monument within larger historical contexts. Developing both local and regional historical contexts for the site, this study will relate the human history of the lands in the vicinity of the monument. Describing what happened here before, during, and after World War II will help to establish the significance of this place and the people who lived here. This study synthesizes a variety of primary and secondary sources. These sources, listed in a bibliography at the end of the report, include military and government documents, census records, newspaper articles, oral histories, manuscript collections, and scholarly books and articles. This study uses these sources to develop relevant themes in order to understand the historic human activity on and near the monument as related to the site's short history as a wartime center. Many people think of southern Idaho as isolated and empty. To a degree, the landscape of the Minidoka Internment National Monument has earned that reputation. 4 On the once sagebrush-covered land surrounding the monument visitors can see family farms with fields of alfalfa, corn, potatoes, onions, or beets but very little other development. Negligible overt evidence of the Minidoka Relocation Center is visible. The monument will help ensure that the people who lived at Minidoka do not disappear from memory. While this site represents a painful time in American history, the story of Minidoka helps convey aspects of perseverance and resolve within the Nikkei community. Minidoka also communicates a story that fits into the larger military and social history of all Americans during World War II. Studying the human history of the site integrates what happened at the monument into the fabric of the American past. 5 Chapter 2 Life on the Margins - History of Early Idaho Introduction The human history of the sagebrush-covered acres at the Minidoka Internment National Monument first must be told within archeological, regional, and national contexts. The North Side irrigation canal bordering the site epitomizes a recent agricultural past that obscures the human activity along the Snake River Plain dating back more than 12,000 years. Full appreciation of the site requires an understanding not only of the prehistoric geology but also the early historic changes in land use, from the earliest inhabitants to the emigrants and early settlers. According to an archeological survey of the site completed in 2001, "no features or artifacts predating the relocation center were encountered" during the inspection of the monument with the exception of the North Side irrigation canal built in 1906. 3 This chapter discusses the earliest human history of the region surrounding the monument to provide a context for later land use history, rather than because of evidence of specific ancient human activity found at the site. Natural History on the Snake River Plain The ash soil and basaltic rock found at the monument resulted from events in the geologic history of North America. Seventeen million years ago, according to one interpretation of geologic evidence, the impact of a gigantic meteorite broke open the 3 Jeffrey F. Burton and Mary M. Farrell, This is Minidoka: An Archeological Survey of Minidoka Internment National Monument, Idaho (Tucson, AR: Western Archeological and Conservation Center, 2001), 2. 6 earth's crust on the land that would become the Pacific Northwest. The collision sent molten lava onto the surface. Over time, as the continental crust slowly moved southwest, the "hot spot" shifted northeast to what is now Idaho. Subsequent eruptions of the hotspot created a volcanic trough now called the Snake River Plain. A thick layer of Rhyolite, a volcanic rock, filled the trough. Movements in the crust caused continual fissures that brought basalt to the surface. A 618 square mile basaltic lava field, the largest in the contiguous United States, is some 60 miles northeast of the Minidoka Internment National Monument. Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, encompassing 83 miles of the field, protects a portion of the field's lava flows, cinder cones, spatter cones, and lava tubes (caves).4 The volcanic ash, meanwhile, fell to the earth and produced a foundation under the soil that covers Idaho. Layers of wind-blown silt called loess covered the ash.