11 Most Endangered
Minidoka Internment National Monument
Year Listed: 2007
Location: Idaho
Current Status: Endangered
Threat: Development
From 1942 to 1945, thousands of Nikkei (Japanese American citizens and immigrants of Japanese ancestry) were sent to south central Idaho to live in camps under armed guard at the Minidoka Relocation Center. Today a National Monument, the site, which once contained more than 600 buildings, offers scant visitor services or interpretive information, and is threatened by insensitive local land-use planning, including the proposed siting of a massive animal feed operation just over a mile away. History In the 1800s, many emigrants from Japan crossed the Pacific Ocean to seek economic opportunity in America. The pioneers (Issei) and their American-born children (Nisei) encountered various forms of racial prejudice in the United States. More than two-thirds of internees at the ten Relocation Centers were American citizens by birth. Those who came to the Minidoka Relocation Center, also known as the Hunt Camp, found a hastily constructed facility ill-suited for the extreme climate of south central Idaho. The camp consisted of administration and warehouse buildings, 44 residential blocks, schools, fire stations, hospital, post office and an assortment of shops and stores, and a cemetery. The hastily-built barracks had no insulation to combat winter temperatures as low as -21 degrees. Spring, with its ankle-deep mud and blinding dust storms, was followed by scorching summertime heat, with temperatures soaring well over 100 degrees.
Update
Minidoka Internment Camp faces a number of threats. Although the camp was disassembled after the war, the National Monument and adjoining properties include a broad collection of buildings and structures from the internment camp period. Unfortunately, while the National Monument was designated over seven years ago, limited funds and staff mean that there are no visitor services at the site, and most interpretation takes place many miles away through a temporary exhibit at Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument. Furthermore, many significant resources lie outside of the current National Monument boundary. Nearby properties include camp supply warehouses, numerous barracks reused as farm buildings, an intact camp fire station, foundations and footprints of staff housing areas, and hundreds of archaeological features related to the camp.
An additional significant threat is posed by the 13,000-head dairy heifer replacement facility proposed just upwind of the site. The first application for this CAFO was withdrawn, but it has since been resubmitted. It is still unclear whether anyone whose primary residence is outside a one-mile radius from the proposed facility will be allowed to testify at public hearings or submit written comments. Read an editorial about the threat to Minidoka by Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The National Park Service conducted a comprehensive, highly inclusive, five-year process to create a General Management Plan for the Minidoka Internment National Monument.When implemented, the Plan would develop interpretive and educational programming at the Minidoka site. In addition, legislation is currently pending before Congress that would expand the boundaries of the National Monument in Idaho and add an important related site on Bainbridge Island, Washington, thus bringing more resources under protection and enhancing interpretive opportunities. This legislation complements legislation recently signed into law by President Bush (supported by the National Trust) that authorizes the creation of a $38 million grant program to ensure the protection of all ten Japanese Internment Camps.
Unfortunately, funds for the program have yet to be appropriated. The Jerome County Commissioners voted on October 9, 2007 to deny the application for the factory farming facility threatening Minidoka, moving the site one step closer to being saved. Read more on the PreservationNation blog.
