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DoJ and
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
U.S. Army Facilities
Camp Lordsburg, New Mexico
The Lordsburg Internment Camp is infamous as the location of the shooting under questionable circumstances of two critically ill Japanese American internees by a sentry on July 27, 1942 (Weglyn 1976:312). Construction of the Lordsburg camp began in February 1942. In July, 613 Japanese American Issei men were transferred to Lordsburg from the Fort Lincoln Internment Center in Bismarck, North Dakota. Eventually 1,500 Japanese were interned at the New Mexico camp. By July 1943 all of the Japanese Americans were gone and Italian POWs were brought in; up to 4,000 were held at Lordsburg between 1943 and 1945 (Thomas et al. 1994). The facility was closed by February 1946.
 Figure 17.42. Lordsburg Internment Camp. (click image for larger size (~48K) ) |
The internment camp site is located along "P.O.W. Road" about 3 miles east of the town of Lordsburg (Figure 17.42). The area is posted with "no trespassing" signs in both English and Spanish (Figure 17.43). There are three residences on the former camp site (Figure 17.44). The owner of one of the residences confirmed that the private property, which has three owners, was the location of the camp. The owners posted the "no trespassing" sign because people looking for camp remains had frequently wandered around without permission. The camp water tank and an adjacent water treatment building are on one property (Figures 17.45 and 17.46); an adjacent property contains a hospital building (Figure 17.47), now used as a residence and another building now used for storage (Figure 17.48). A small concrete vault-like building and a decorative U.S. seal made of pebbles embedded in concrete is on the third property (Figures 17.49 and 17.50). One of the other owners once tried to move the decorative seal to his property but the current owner of the property on which it is located objected.
 Figure 17.49. Small concrete building at the Lordsburg Internment Camp. |
 Figure 17.50. Detail of decorative at the Lordsburg Internment Camp. |
Besides the large structures, not much of the camp is left. A mining company purchased the land in the early 1970s and removed all of the foundation slabs to prepare for building a subdivision, which never materialized. Concrete rubble used for retaining walls for loading ramps at a borrow pit about -1/2 mile northwest of the site may have been salvaged from the camp (Figures 17.51 and 17.52). Large upturned concrete blocks at a road intersection -1/2 mile south of the site may have been guard tower foundations. Some former internees and POWs had returned to visit recently, but such visitors were more common years ago (Robert Lowery, personal communication, 1998).
 Figure 17.51. Concrete blocks used for retaining wall northwest of the Lordsburg Internment Camp. |
 Figure 17.52. Concrete debris northwest of the Lordsburg Internment Camp. |
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Last Modified: Fri, Sep 1 2000 07:08:48 pm PDT
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