Poston Japanese Internment Camp - Ghost Towns of Arizona and Surrounding States

Historic Sites, Poston, Arizona

Poston Japanese Internment Camp
We visited the abandoned Japanese Internment Camp in Poston Arizona better known as Colorado River Relocation Center. This place is huge with many intact structures and in good shape for being abandoned for 70 years. The camp was originally over 71,000 acres with a population of over 17 thousand people. The original camp had three sections, two which are farm fields now.

History:
The War Relocation Authority operated the camp from May 8th, 1942 until it was shut down November 28th, 1945.

The interned were mostly from California, including the counties of Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange. 2,750 were from Los Angeles, according to Central Washington University. Unlike the other camps, Poston was overseen by what is now Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Despite misgivings by The Colorado River Indian Reservation Tribal Council who opposed the use of the last of their land for a relocation center on the grounds of "inflicting the same type of injustice as they had suffered," according to the National Park Service.

The peak population of the 71,000-acre Poston camp reached 17,814 on September 2nd, 1942.