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US Army Facilities
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Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites by J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord, and R. Lord |
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Chapter 17 (continued)
Department of Justice and U.S. Army Facilities
Department of Justice Internment Camps
Fort Stanton, New Mexico
Established in 1855, Fort Stanton is in an isolated portion of New Mexico, 35 miles north of Ruidoso. In 1899 the fort was transferred to the Merchant Marine for use as a tuberculosis sanatorium. During World War II the fort was used as an internment camp, mostly for German nationals. In 1953 the fort was transferred to the State of New Mexico, which until recently used it as a minimum security women's prison.
The first internees held at the fort were the German crew of the German luxury liner Columbus which was scuttled off the coast of so Cuba in 1939. Since the U.S. was not at war with Germany at the time the internees were considered "distressed seaman paroled from the German Embassy." They were housed in a deserted CCC barracks across from Fort Stanton, and cultivated a 60-acre farm. When the U.S. entered the war the Department of Justice brought in border patrol agents as guards and the barracks was surrounded with a barbed-wire fence (Banks 1998).
The Department of Justice also established a small disciplinary camp at Fort Stanton for "incorrigible agitators" which they named "Japanese Segregation Camp #1." The camp served the same function, but for non-citizens, as the citizen isolation centers at Moab and Leupp run by the WRA. By late October 1945 there were 58 Japanese Americans incarcerated there (Culley 1991). The exact location of the segregation camp and whether there are any remains left is not known.
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Last Modified: Fri, Sep 1 2000 07:08:48 pm PDT
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