Minidoka National Historic Site
National Monument · Jerome, Idaho
The remains of the War Relocation Center where more than thirteen thousand Japanese Americans were imprisoned between 1942 and 1945, on high desert scrub north of Twin Falls that had no town, no shade and no reason for anyone to be there. At its peak it held 9,397 people behind barbed wire, most of them from Seattle, Portland and Alaska, and two thirds of them were American citizens. What survives is the stone entry guard station and waiting room, a rock garden the incarcerees built, a reconstructed honor roll listing the men who volunteered from the camp into the US Army, a relocated barracks and mess hall, and a mile and a half of ground that explains itself largely by being empty.
1428 Hunt Road, Jerome, Idaho, 83338, United States
THE GROUNDS AND THE WALKING TRAIL ARE OPEN YEAR ROUND during daylight and are always free. THE VISITOR CENTRE - a converted warehouse - IS SEASONAL, typically Wednesday to Sunday from spring into autumn and closed through the winter, and its hours have moved more than once. ⚠ VERIFY BEFORE DRIVING OUT: the site is twenty minutes off the interstate with nothing around it, and arriving on a closed day means the trail without the interpretation. There is no fee at any time of year. The annual pilgrimage organised by Friends of Minidoka brings former incarcerees and their descendants back each summer and is the one weekend the place is not quiet.
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