By Kevin Simpson | Colorado Sun
Nearly two years after legislation designated the site of Colorado’s Granada War Relocation Center — also known as Camp Amache — part of the National Park System, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland on Thursday formally closed the deal that creates Amache National Historic Site, ensuring federal protection for the grounds where more than 10,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II.
Details surrounding Granada’s official acquisition and donation of the land were recently finalized to clear the way for the National Park Service to assume management of the site, which sits on nearly one square mile just outside of the southeastern Colorado town.
Amache opened in 1942 and closed in 1945. It was the smallest of 10 such inland incarceration camps constructed in response to fear that Japanese immigrants — about two-thirds of those at Amache were American citizens — posed a security threat to the United States after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Almost immediately, Amache became one of Colorado’s largest towns, at one point holding more than 7,300 people transported mostly from the West Coast.