Maricopa’s 1940s neighbors

Arizona’s fourth largest city was located within a couple of miles to the north end of Murphy Road in the early 1940s. More than 8,000 citizens lived in Butte Community (closest to Maricopa), and Canal Community had a population of more than 5,000. These two communities consisted of relocated Japanese Americans from the California area. 

This unfortunate event happened as part of the early war hysteria of WWII with the fear that the Japanese Americans might have a stronger allegiance to Japan than to America. 

Butte Camp had 821 buildings that included offices, a post office, a laundry, garages, warehouses, police office, court, gas station, and a water filtration plant.  It had 627 residential barracks that included 46 schools, 6 churches, and 29 for services such as: sewing shop, shoe repair shop, dry cleaning, barber and beauty shop, canteen, store and hospital. 
 
Canal Camp had 404 buildings, 44 for administrative purposes, 232 barracks for living quarters, 16 mess halls, 17 ironing rooms, 17 laundry rooms, 34 latrine and shower buildings, 24 school buildings and 20 community service buildings. Residential sections were divided into blocks of 14 barracks. Each barrack was 20 by 100 square feet and divided into four single-family apartments. Two 700-feet wells were dug that provided drinking water, and San Carlos Reservoir supplied agricultural water for each community. 

 The Gila River communities were made up of blocks that served 250-300 people with each block consisting of 14 barracks, a mess hall, library and a recreational hall used for church services, club activities, or a meeting place. Evaporative coolers in each building also helped with the hot days of the summer. One of the residents served as block manager and supervised routine problems that had to do with housing, sanitation and was the project director. Each block also had a representative on the community council that acted as an advisory group to the project director.

In the beginning, conditions were not conducive for fine living. There was over-crowding and limited basic facilities.  There was a school with bare rooms-no desks, chairs, textbooks or blackboard. However, the teachers, many with college degrees or with some teaching experience, and students adjusted remarkably well, making their own equipment. They used the painted walls as blackboards, with classes creating their own textbooks, and vocational classes making the tables and chairs. One report listed an enrollment of more than 3,500 students from kindergarten to high school with the educational program deemed adequate in spite of lacking educational equipment and facilities. 

There was one Caucasian doctor, who served as the director of the hospital and medical services, in addition to evacuee doctors and nurses. Evacuee residents with one Caucasian advisor and assistant served as supervisors for the police and fire departments. The government operated through a council of block representatives similar to city council government with the added responsibility of creating law and order, and regulations and rules of conduct.

Forced to leave their homes from California and live in a strange environment, this group of indomitable Americans responded with remarkable resilience and fortitude, creating an outstanding vegetable farm and city almost overnight. Up to 8,000 acres near the Canal Camp were farmed, growing 42 different varieties of vegetables. They grew carrots, beets, celery and other vegetables as well as raising livestock. There was an experimental farm, and a large field of cauliflower grown for its seeds. In addition, the camps had a dehydration plant, a cannery and vegetable packing shed. 

Itaro Nakata, who operated an experimental nursery in California before the war, grew larkspurs, and developed and patented several new types of chrysanthemums while living at the camp. Nearly 1,000 internees from both camps worked on the farms.  They not only fed their own people, but also supplied other relocation camps with food. Before the end of the first year, 84 train carloads of food were shipped to other relocation camps. Twenty percent of food consumed at other camps came from Gila River. These farmers produced 150 acres of flax, cotton and castor beans. 

There was a camouflaged net factory for a short time, and a model ship factory at the Gila River Relocation camp. Ship models, replicas of German warships that were used in U.S. identification training program, were crafted and built. 

Residents created their own recreational activities. They constructed a stage made from scrap lumber where a variety of entertainment, including talent shows, drama groups and movies took place. They constructed basketball and football goal posts using scrap wood and played a variety of other playground games. The Butte Camp baseball diamond, designed by professional baseball player Kenichi Zenimura, was considered first class. It included dugouts, bleachers and could seat up to 6,000 spectators.

Eleanor Roosevelt, troubled by the 1942 policy of interning Japanese-Americans, constantly campaigned for changes. Her husband sent her to visit the Gila camps in Arizona on April 23, 1943.  She later wrote:

“To undo a mistake is always harder than not to create one originally but we seldom have the foresight. Therefore, we have no choice but to try to correct our past mistakes and I hope that the recommendations of the staff of the War Relocation Authority, who have come to know individually most of the Japanese Americans in these various camps, will be accepted. We have no common race in this country, but we have an ideal to which all of us are loyal: we cannot progress if we look down upon any group of people amongst us because of race or religion. Every citizen in this country has a right to our basic freedoms, to justice and to equality of opportunity. We retain the right to lead our individual lives as we please, but we can only do so if we grant to others the freedoms that we wish for ourselves.”

After the war and years later, a workshop titled Children of the Camps, a one-hour documentary, portrayed the stories of six Japanese Americans interned in relocation camps as children, during World War II, and the long-lasting impact it had…and continues to have… upon their lives today:
 
“I remember the soldiers marching us to the Army tank and I looked at their rifles and I was just terrified because I could see this long knife at the end . . . I thought I was imagining it as an adult much later . . . I thought it couldn’t have been bayonets because we were just little kids.”

More than 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned all over the U.S. during World War II, and more than half were children. The two Gila River camps opened in July of 1942, and closed in November of 1945 with approximately 13,300 inhabitants. 
 
In the 1950s, this site contained a pile of broken dishes and pottery as high as an automobile. However, when it was revisited a couple of decades later, there was many scattered pieces of pottery, but the stack was gone. Today, entrance to this area is forbidden. 

Photo courtesy of Wartime Relocation Authority 

The Maricopa Historical Society invites all Maricopa’s citizens to write their stories and memories for preservation. Stories and memories may include other topics, too, such as surviving the wars, the depression, etc. The Society video-tapes oral history interviews, too, which is part of the Oral History Project.

If you are interested in sharing your memories and stories, please contact Pat Brock at 480-821-0604 or by email at [email protected].

Bill Staples, baseball historian from Chandler, Ariz., has written a full-length biography on Kenichi Zenimura. There is a video (http://www.youtube.com/zenimura) and a related article on the book. A new biography of Kenichi Zenimura by Staples, published by McFarland Press, is scheduled for release in 2011.