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 More
than 10,000 Japanese immigrants were interned at Manzanar during the 1940s
after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor bringing America into World War II. Manzanar
is now preserved as a National Historic Site. Learn more about it at their official
site: www.nps.gov/manz.
The Manzanar Relocation Center was in
the Owens Valley about 45 miles south of Bishop. Located for the most part
on the west side of U.S. Highway 395, between the towns of Lone Pine and
Independence. The
central portion of the relocation center site is now a National Historic Site
administered by the National Park Service. Outlying portions of the relocation
center are on city of Los Angeles land administered by the Department of Water
and Power and public land administered by the Bureau of Land Management.
The Manzanar Relocation Center, established as the Owens Valley Reception Center, was first run by the U.S. Army's Wartime Civilian Control Administration (WCCA).
It later became the first relocation center to be operated by the War Relocation
Authority (WRA). The center was located at the former farm and orchard community
of Manzanar. Founded in 1910, the town was abandoned when the city of Los Angeles
purchased the land in the late 1920s for its water rights. The Los Angeles aqueduct,
which carries Owens Valley water to Los Angeles, is a mile east of Manzanar.
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