History of the Site
The Granada War Relocation Center, better known as Amache, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006. Located near the Town of Granada in southeastern Colorado, Amache is a nationally significant, outstanding example of a WWII relocation center. Amache opened in August 1942 and remained open throughout the duration of WWII until 1945. At its peak, the camp housed 7,318 persons. The camp was one of ten in the nation created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration under the authority of Executive Order 9066, which followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. The Executive Order incarcerated Japanese-Americans during World War II following their forced removal by military authorities from the West Coast. This action was justified as “military necessity” and greatly influenced by racist sentiment and wartime hysteria, compounded by intense fear of Japanese terrorist attacks or espionage against the United States. Amache, however, was particularly known for its ability to avoid the characteristic conflict and violence that many other centers had. Amache’s period of significance extends from 1942, when the War Relocation Authority selected the site as a relocation center, to 1947 when the War Assets Administration disposed of, mainly off-site, the last of its buildings.
Amache today is underutilized despite its exemplary historic national significance. The site exists today as it did when the War Relocation Authority selected the site in 1942 – a generally treeless prairie dominated by sagebrush, sunflowers, and prickly pear cactus. It does, however, retain remarkable intact tangible historic, namely archaeological, resources that include foundations of camp facilities, trees planted by former Amache internees, one of three surviving relocation center cemeteries and original dirt and gravel roads. These resources uniquely illustrate Amache’s historic layout and help explain what past Camp internees’ social and cultural interactions were once like. Amache is generally open to the public, but there are no developed areas accessible for further educational or interpretive visitor experiences other than a few roadside interpretive signs indicating the camp’s historic location and purpose. And though University of Denver and Granada High School students use the site for research, still no developed areas comprehensively exist for the purposes of site education, interpretation, and greater public benefit.
Project Description
In 2007 the Friends of Amache (which consists of the Amache Historical Society, the Amache Club, the Amache Preservation Society, and the Town of Granada) and the National Park Service organized a Comprehensive Interpretive Plan and Conceptual Development Plan outlining the interpretive and educational goals of the Amache site. One primary interpretive theme “from chaos to community” seeks to express the struggle of internees to develop a sense of community, maintain their family structure, and retain a sense of normalcy at Amache. An essential element to providing interpretation under this theme includes incorporation of building stock, in particular barracks buildings, currently missing from the site. The vast majority of Amache’s original building stock was dispersed through sale by the War Assets Administration in 1947, leaving only foundations to indicate the placement of buildings and expanse of the camp. Among the goals of the Plan is the creation of a more interactive, sensory visitor experience at Amache that can be provided by the physical presence of buildings on site grounds.
The Friends of Amache and partners wish to develop a barrack block or cluster of buildings on-site that would potentially include a mess hall, barrack building(s), guard tower, water tower, and a portion of camp fencing. Working in partnership with the Friends of Amache and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Colorado Preservation, Inc. was awarded two grants from the National Park Service’s Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program in June 2010. The first project is to develop a rehabilitation and reconstruction plan for the Water Tower, of which the original tank portion was found largely intact under ownership of the Fletcher family who owns a ranch 20 miles south of Granada. When the Fletchers donated the tank to the Amache Preservation Society in Feb. 2010, an architectural/structural engineering plan was developed to stabilize, move, and then store the tank for safe-keeping until further funds are raised to carry out the rehabilitation/reconstruction of the full water tower. In early Dec. 2010, while collecting the water tank materials from the Fletcher property (which was in use there since 1947), nearly all of the original water tower’s missing parts were discovered in a refuse pile not far from the tank site. The parts included the wooden “legs,” more than 300 fastening pieces like bolts and plates, and the original platform on which the water tower sat. These materials were thought to have been lost when the camp was abandoned in 1947, so you can imagine the surprise and delight of this discovery more than 60 years later! These parts will now be more accurately incorporated into the construction documents and design for the water tower reconstruction, which once complete will ultimately aid in visitor appreciation and understanding of Amache and the former internee experience. An interpretive panel design and fabrication is also included in the project.
The second project will develop an inventory of existing building stock related to Amache, including residential, administrative, institutional, and civic buildings, within the southeastern region of Colorado (including Baca, Bent, Crowley, Kiowa, Otero, Las Animas, and Prowers counties) and immediate areas of the adjoining states of Kansas and Oklahoma. Preliminary research has indicated a large percentage of Amache’s buildings may have been sold within this region. The survey will: inform future plans for the building block development based on Amache-related archival research, identify potential locations of building stock in the identified region covering a 110 mile radius of Amache, complete inventory forms of existing building stock at present locations including an evaluation of building stock physical and historic integrity, prioritize identified building stock for relocation to Amache, provide moving feasibility of buildings prioritized, and produce a final report with recommendations on the future physical move of buildings, on-site stabilization, historic rehabilitation/restoration, interpretation, and potential related preservation funding sources. This project is on-going and anticipated to be complete fall of 2011.
Project Support
Both the Water Tower and Building Stock Survey projects are supported by a grant from the National Park Service (Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program), and the Friends of Amache (which consists of Amache Historical Society, the Amache Club, the Amache Preservation Society, and the Town of Granada). The National Trust for Historic Preservation is also a strong partner in these projects and is administering the reconstruction of the Guard Tower, which is similar in scope to the Water Tower project with reconstruction treatments being guided primarily by historical research and photographic evidence.
