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 14 (continued)
Citizen Isolation Centers

Moab Isolation Center, Utah

The site is at Dalton Wells, Utah, east of U.S. Highway 191, about 13 miles north of the town of Moab. At the highway, low concrete pillars flank the entry road (Figure 14.5). Cottonwood and tamarisk trees to the east (between the highway and Courthouse Wash) mark the camp location (Figure 14.6). The area shows recent use for stock grazing, with corrals, sheds, troughs, and water tanks.

Figure 14.5. Concrete entrance pillars, Moab Isolation Center.

Figure 14.6. Administration area, Moab Isolation Center.

Historical photographs show 18 board-and-batten buildings, including eight barracks, at the camp in the 1930s. Later photographs show three or four additional buildings. As is common at CCC camps, the Moab camp is divided into three sections: an administration area, a support area, and a barracks area. The administration area is to the north of the current access road and the support and barracks areas are to the south.

In the administration area probable building locations are indicated by small concrete slabs, barren leveled areas, large cottonwood trees, and other remains. South of the slabs and trees there are rock alignments and rock rubble at what may have been the camp flagpole location. A retaining wall on the east side of the administration area and a concrete well box are likely from the CCC era. Near the well is a more recent well with windmill supports.

In the support are, along the east side of the camp along the wash, there are large concrete foundations for what appears to be a generator building, a garage, and a blacksmith shop (Figures 14.7 and 14.8). A concrete loading dock along the wash has collapsed.

Figure 14.7. Concrete slab in support area, Moab Isolation Center.

Figure 14.8. Concrete slab in support area, Moab Isolation Center.

In the barracks area there is little indication of former buildings and the area is partly covered by a pond and its berm. There is, however, what appears to be a concrete floor trough for a laundry room, overgrown with vegetation. It may be associated with a much larger buried slab. A single rock alignment was found along a road that once connected the barracks and administration areas.

Outlying remains associated with the camp include a CCC-built concrete and rock cistern to the north and two explosives sheds dug into the hillside west across the highway from the camp (Figure 14.9).

Figure 14.9. Moab Isolation Center.
(click image for larger size (~52K) )

The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 for its association with the New Deal CCC work program and the World War II Japanese American relocation. There is no historical marker at the site, but the Dan O'Laurie Museum in Moab has a photograph on display of the camp with the simple caption: "1937 — Dalton Wells Civilian Conservation Corps Camp — It was a prison for Japanese-American Citizens in 1943."

Continued

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