Manzanar Auditorium

Manzanar Auditorium, Toyo Miyatake

Courtesy of Toyo Miyatake Studio

Quick Facts

Location:

west of Manzanar parking lot

Amenities

1 listed

Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits

A Community Living Room

The Manzanar Auditorium is one of three original buildings remaining here from Manzanar War Relocation Center. You would have heard laughter, tears, music – the sounds of celebration and sadness that echoed through this building’s cavernous space. They linger in the stories of Manzanar, of those who worked and played here over many decades: incarcerated Japanese Americans, War Relocation Authority (WRA) staff, and Owens Valley residents.

In just five months, incarcerated carpenters transformed standard government blueprints into a community auditorium for more than 5,000 people still confined here in June 1944.

With a stage, locker rooms, and projection booth, the 14,000 sq. ft. building changed the way Manazanar gathered. Concerts, lectures, Japanese American cultural activities, and physical education classes filled its calendar – and often its 1,280-seat capacity. Tickets for dances, talent shows, and movie nights were 5 cents for children, 25 cents for adults, and 50 cents for camp staff, and “everyone else.”

Standing Together

A somber Manzanar community, including Project Director Ralph Merritt, center, gathered at the west entrance after an April 29, 1945 memorial service for Pfc. Sadao Munemori and Sgt. Robert Nakasaki, American soldiers killed in Italy on April 5, 1945, while their families remained confined at Manzanar.

Built to Last

The auditorium faced an uncertain future as Mananar closed in November 1945. Inyo County purchased it in 1947, and the Independence Veterans of Foreign Wars hosted community social and sports events here until 1951. The south wing was moved to Lone Pine in 1954, and Inyo County converted the auditorium to a road equipment maintenance shop where many local residents worked over the next forty years.

A Place for Remembering

Time, weather, and alteration had taken their toll when the National Park Service purchased the building in 1996. Six years later, a $3.5 million rehabilitation process began. On April 24, 2004, more than 2,500 formerly incarcerated Japanese Americans, local residents, and others celebrated the building’s dedication as Manzanar’s Visitor Center and park headquarters.

To hear Rose E. Honda talk about her memories of the auditorium, click here.
To see silent film footage of a Manzanar graduation at the auditorium, click here.