Catalina Federal Honor Camp

Over the years I have visited four of the World War II Japanese Internment camps and learned about the shameful imprisonment of people just because they were of Japanese descent.  The four camps I have been to are Manzanar, California; Heart Mountain, Wyoming; Minidoka, Idaho; and Topaz, Utah.  I previously posted photos of Minidoka and Topaz on this blog.  Here is the story of another site where people from those camps were sent if they were “troublemakers”.

I just returned from visiting my son and his wife, Brian and Laura, in Tucson, Arizona and while there visited the remnants of a prison camp.  The Catalina Federal Honor Camp housed over 8000 prisoners between 1933 and the early 1950’s.  They were there to build the Catalina Highway up Mt. Lemmon, and among the prisoners were 46 Japanese draft resisters, conscientious objectors, and Gordon Hirabayashi, who defied the government relocation and turned himself in to the FBI.  He was convicted of a curfew violation and sentenced to 90 days in prison after fighting the charge all the way to the Supreme Court.

The prison was an honor camp without walls.  Painted white stones and strong warnings were all that kept the prisoners there.  Even so, the Japanese prisoners were transferred from internment camps in leg irons by armed guards.  Mr. Hirabayashi was the exception.  He hitchhiked to the camp.

The draft resisters were pardoned in 1947, and Gordon Hirabayashi’s conviction was overturned in 1987 when it was discovered that evidence in his favor had been withheld.  He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 2012.  After the war, the camp was used as a labor camp for juvenile offenders, then a youth rehabilitation center.  After it closed in 1973 the buildings were destroyed, and the site turned into a campground.  It is now the Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Site in honor of its most famous prisoner. 

I am grateful to an old friend, Merry Lewis, for taking Linda and me to this historic site.  In a sense, this is a ghost town with nothing but walls and concrete slabs left where there used to be barracks, a mess hall, employee cottages, a baseball field, and many other buildings.

Left, Linda

Right, Merry

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Humboldt City, Nevada

About 500 people lived here once, but Humboldt City has been a ghost town since the post office was removed in 1869.  Silver was discovered here in 1860, and the city was built here to support several mines.  But, it didn’t last long.

A dirt road runs from the valley through the center of town.

Humboldt City is located along a creek that runs through a canyon high on a mountain in the Humboldt Range of Nevada.  There were 200 buildings here, and now you can still find many rock ruins scattered through the underbrush and on the hillsides.

Some of them, like this one with the double windows, have signs that people tried to move in here long after the city was abandoned.  We found a cinder block fireplace added to this old rock wall.

This cabin also has some modern materials like rusty window screens.  It was hard to get to because it was built in a deep gully next to the creek.  I don’t understand why it wasn’t washed away years ago.

There were two hotels here; the Coulter House and the Iowa House.  I’m guessing that this ruin was one of them because of the large front room and a smaller room in back that could have been a kitchen.

The view from the hotel looked up the canyon toward the mountains where the mines were located.  It looks like it has been a long time since the last “No Vacancy” sign went up.

Humboldt City is just a couple of miles from busy Highway 80, near Mill City, Nevada, but being there is like being in a different world.

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