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Jap Relocation Center, to Serve ManyPurposes, Is Mushrooming in Wyoming; Many Tasks Are OutlinedBy LIEF ERICKSON Cody, Wyo., Aug. 1.— (WideWorld)northern Wyoming, army gineers are finishing a town for 10,000 Japanese in just 60 days.A barracks-type apartment■building for six families is builtfrom foundation to roof in 59 working minutes.There’ll be 456 of these apartment houses in the 19-block site of the Heart mountain Japanese relocation center. The center is 12 miles north of Cody, familiar to American travelers as the eastern gateway into Yellowstone national park.The Heart mountain camp, complete with modern sewagement building was started one morning. The next day the con- | home.Elliston, Aug. 1.—Mrs. Walter Stalnacker and children of Gardiner who have been herovisiting with her parents Mr. andMrs. Waiter White have returnedIn the sage country of j struction contractors moved inen- i their field office staff.A full force of 2,500 workers—many of them cowhands, tourist guides and coal miners—soon hit the pace of 59 working minutes to pound together the barracks building, 140 feet long and 20 feet wide.Mr. and Mrs. Francis Ahl and children and Mrs. E. B. Lince have returned from Couer d’Alene.Mr. and Mrs. Bernard’ Standley have returned from the west coast.Mr. and Mrs. Itoy Meyers ofAnaconda are here visiting Mrs. Proud of the job’s speed rec- j Meyer’s parents, Mr. and Mrs.ord, Colonel Pick observes:“It’s impossible to work at this terrific rate without having a highly trained, copipetent, efficient organization in the fieldprepared to take definite actionon a moment’s notice.”The engineers will leave thedisposal plant and a water aye- thetem with a million-gallon reser- »onts to the Japanese.voir and filtration plant, will become Wyoming’s fifth largest city, five times larger than CodyItself.The first nail on the center project was pounded June 8. Japanese evacuees—including millionaire industrialists, fishermen, farmers and laborers—will be moved in about Aug. 15, from crowded temporary assembly centers in California, Washingtonand Oregon.Ten such camps now are mushrooming in the empty spaces of the mountain states and in Arkansas.Rush Jobs.All are rush Jobs because the western defense command wants the Japanese shifted as quickly as possbile into interior areas where a saboteur can find little but wide open spaces to work on.The Heart mountain center offers an example of American talent for organization and assemblyline output.From the time the site waspicked, in a 41,000 acre public domain tract, this is the story of how the center is being built:On June 1 Col. Lewis A. Pick of Omaha, division engineer of the Missouri division, coj^is of engineers, got his orders: ‘‘Finish the camp in 60 days.”Starting from scratch with a telephone, Colonel Pick had to find and put on the job an architectural engineer and construction contractors and have shippedto the camp site 13,000,000 boardfeet of lumber, nails, bulldozers,{power shovels, trenching machines and drag lines.Besides the 456 apartment buildings and the water and sewer systems, the town plan called for 38 mess halls, 38 recreation buildings, and 38 laundry and |bsth buildings for the Japanese, as well as 13 administrative buildings, 17 hospital group buildings, 21 warehouses, and 13 structures for military policequarters.Avoids DelayNew orders for lumber would have taken four months, at least, to fill- So Colonel Pick’s officestarted borrowing available material from air base and ordnance plant projects in Iowa, Kansasand Nebraska. Copper wire waspicked up from the Rural Elec-trification administration inTexas.All emergency materials were on their way to Center Site even before the Burlington railroad could build a 40-car siding.An engineering company staff, expert on hydro-electric power Installations but inexperienced in rough and tumble town construction, was moved in from the Fort Peck (Mont.) dam.All this preparation was done or under way in the week before June 8, when Maj- J. C. Robbers of Minneapolis, former assistant Minnesota highway maintenanceengineer, arrived from SiouxFalla, S. D., to take charge as grea engineer.One-Day UnitWith plans drawn on the back ©f an envelope, the first apart-“They’ll have a whole winter before another crop season, and there’ll have to be work to keep them busy as soon as they get here,” Major Robbers says.Big Task AheadThe Japanese will work for the war’s duration to convert a sage brush land into fields of peas, beans and potatoes. The U. S. Army’s objective is to make the evacuees from the Pacific coast take care of themselves.At the Heart mountain camp, however, they also will carry forward the federal reclamation bureau’s Heart mountain irrigation project, which was halted by the outbreak of war. They’ll have 41,000 acres of public domain land to work on. Irrigation water can be turned into 14,000 acres of the area next spring.The Japanese will dig irrigation canals and lateral ditches.They’ll break and develop landfor American farmers to take over after the war Is won. Meantime, they’ll be producing food to support themselves and their fellows in other relocation camps.The life of the evacuees at the center won’t be easy, says John Baker, director of reports for the war relocation authority, but it won’t be a grim concentration camp existence either.They will not be allowed to leave the camp except for field work under civilian supervision. But there will be no barricade around the center’s 19 blocks.Two companies of military policewill see to it that there is nowandering or disorder.The war relocation authority staff, in direct charge of the center’s Japanese population, will becivilian, but responsible to the Army’s western defense command.Inside the center, says Baker, there will he a complete community life.The skilled workers among the evacuees will construct their own high school and two grarn-mer schools. Japanese of education and trusted character willbe used as teachers.In the camp’s 38 recreation buildings, the Japanese will be free to worship in any religion they choose, except the Shinto creed of emperor worship.The Japanese, according toBaker, will organize their own internal police force and theirown fire department. So far as possible, Japanese doctors and dentists will be used to treat their own people.Each family group will have a one-room apartment, approximately 20 feet square. It will be left to the family's entreprise and industry whether it wants to divide the apartment into rooms.The camp population will eat in community mess halls, staffed by cooks and waiters of their ownnumber.To Market CropsWhenever there is no issue ofcompetition with American farmers or Industry, the surplus products grown by the camp peoplewill be marketed. The revenueThomas Mv’es.Mr. aud Mrs. Louis Kreig of Deer Lodge were callers at the home of Mrs. Kre g’s parents, Mr end Mrs M. I). Mizner, Sunday.Mr. and Mrs. Albert DuvJes ofHelena were cal’ers at the home of Mrs. Ella Thompson one day last week.Mrs. Carrie Schults of Avon visited her sister, Mrs. M. D. Mizner one day last week.Mrs. John Miller and children left for Seattle last week to visit with her hu?foand.Mrs. Thomas Myles, Jr., who has been in Minnesota visiting; with her mother for the past few months has returned home.Mr. and Mrs. Toivo Ylinen and son spent the week-end in Butte.Miss Frances Olson of Butte is here visiting wi.Tt her brother and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Olson.Mrs. Allen Cama of Helena was a caller at the homo of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. E. B. Lince one day last week.Byron Greany cf Fort Peck was an Elliston caller during the past week visiting wltn his parents, Mr. and Mrs. William Greany,Mr. and Mrs. John Yoakum have returned to Butte.Mrs. Alfred and Mrs. RaymondLindquist were Helena business callers during the week.Miss Nadine Tucker of Helena visited her parents, Mr. and Mrs.Clarence Tucker.Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Qualls were In Helena on business.Mrs. Ella Thompson is visitingat the home of Mr. and MH. E. W. Stephenson in Deer Lodge.Miss Leati Kemston made business trip to Helena.aPENGUINSAlthough penguins are symbolical of the Antarctic, only two of the 17 known species breed exclusively within the Antarctic Circle.AMERICAN STEELRated” capacity of the American steel industry was more than84,000,000 tons of steel ingots and castings per year at the close of 1940.Pure tin is used in the manufacture of collapsible tube? for shaving creams and toothpaste.will be used for the camp’s support.A project for grazing sheep on 20,000 acres of available land isunder consideration for the Heart mountain center.One relocation camp in California is already making furniture for use in other centers. Japanese in another camp are making camouflage netting for the Army. Only Japanese with American citizenship who volunteer will be assigned to the making of military equipment.Under present policy, the Japanese who work will be paid $12 a month for common labor, $16 a month for skilled work, and $19 a month for professional service. Their food and homes aresupplied them without charge.A problem that will be handled as it arises in each center will be that of any Japanese whorefuses to work.The nine other relocation centers are located at Owens Valley, Calif.; Poston, Ariz.; Sacaton,Arlz.; Newell, Calif.; Eden,Idaho; Rohwer, Ark.; Granada,Colo.; Jerome. Ark., and Delta,Utah.
Newspaper Details
Helena Independent
Helena, Montana, US
Sun, Aug 02, 1942
Page 13
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 29 Aug 2019
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