Cover Page

Table of Contents

Abstract

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Essay

Brief History

Gila River

Granada

Heart Mountain

Jerome

Manzanar

Minidoka

Poston

Rohwer

Topaz

Tule Lake

Isolation Centers

Add'l Facilities

Assembly Centers

DoJ and US Army Facilities

Prisons

References

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites by J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord, and R. Lord

Chapter 13 (continued)
Tule Lake Relocation Center

The evacuee residential blocks were located on the northeast side of the central area away from the highway. The evacuee area was separated from the rest of the developed central area by a 400-foot-wide firebreak. The fence that was added between the evacuee residences and the administration areas after the Fall 1943 disturbance was constructed along the south side of the firebreak.

The evacuee residential blocks were divided into eight wards, each bounded on all sides by 200-foot-wide firebreaks. Most wards comprised nine evacuee residential blocks; the exceptions were Ward 6, which had only six blocks, and Ward 8, on the east side, which was composed of 13 blocks. The eastern portion of the evacuee residential area was crossed by a canal.

The 40 earliest-constructed evacuee residential blocks each had thirteen 20-foot-by-100-foot barracks (Figure 13.18), a mess hall, a recreation building, a men's latrine and shower, a women's latrine and shower, a laundry, and an ironing room. Later, another women's latrine and shower building was added to each of these blocks. Sixteen later-constructed blocks had a combination men's and women's latrine and shower building and a combination laundry and ironing room. After segregation ten more of these types of blocks were added, for a total of 66 residential blocks. Blocks were numbered sequentially, likely in the order they were built, but with numbers 55 and 60-65 not used.

Figure 13.18. Evacuee barracks at Tule Lake. (John D. Cook photograph, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley)

Figure 13.19. Baseball game at Tule Lake. (Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah)

Block recreation buildings were used for offices, six stores, five canteens, a beauty parlor, a barber shop, four judo halls, eight Buddhist churches, a Catholic church, and three other churches. In the firebreaks there were three fire stations, a fish store, an outdoor stage (Tulean Dispatch 4/6/43), and a funeral parlor and cemetery, as well as 31 baseball and softball fields (Tulean Dispatch 5/11/43; Figure 13.19), and a sumo wrestling pit between blocks 18 and 19 (Tulean Dispatch 7/2/43).

New school buildings were planned, but only the high school, located in the firebreak between the hospital and evacuee residential area, was ever completed and then not until February 1944. It included an auditorium/gym, a shop, a science and crafts building, a library, an administration building, and four classroom buildings, connected by covered walks. Two of the classroom buildings at the high school were used for an elementary school.

Domestic water was supplied by seven wells, a water treatment plant, and an elevated 200,000 gallon storage tank to the east of the central area, and two 1 million gallon tanks to the south on the Peninsula. Sewage was treated in two plants, the second added after the relocation center was changed to a segregation center and expanded. Each had a sump pump, Imhoff tank, sludge beds (180 feet by 366 feet), and effluent beds (800 feet by 900 feet). Apparently the first plant did not have enough capacity even for the original relocation center population: WRA blueprints show a large pond for holding untreated sewage near it.

Continued

Last Modified: Fri, Sep 1 2000 07:08:48 pm PDT
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