Day 83: Jerome War Relocation Center (Concentration Camp), Drew, Arkansas
📌APIA Every Day (83) - The Jerome Relocation Center, located in Drew County, Arkansas, was the last of the 10 Japanese incarceration camps to open and the first to close. Operating from October 6, 1942, until June 20, 1944, it reached its peak population at nearly 8,500. The majority of the Japanese imprisoned had previously resided in Los Angeles, Fresno, Sacramento, and Hawai’i, with 66% being American citizens.
Situated eight miles south of the small farming town of Dermott in Chicot County, the camp was connected by rail to the Rohwer Relocation Center in Desha County via the Missouri Pacific Railway system. The entire Jerome site encompassed 10,054 acres situated between the Big and Crooked Bayous. Residential buildings lacked plumbing or running water and relied on wood stoves for heating during the winter months. The camp was partially surrounded by barbed wire or heavily wooded areas, with guard towers strategically placed and manned by a small contingent of military personnel.
Due to its small size, incarcerated Japanese Americans lived in dense quarters, leading to an influenza outbreak in January 1944. Tensions rose due to disputes with administration over working conditions, exacerbated by the death of an inmate in an on-the-job accident. From November 1942 to October 1943, incarcerated Japanese Americans went on strike multiple times.
Jerome was the first of the ten relocation camps to close, later serving as a German prisoner-of-war camp until the end of World War II. Today, only a granite monument remains at the former site of the Jerome concentration camp. An internment camp museum opened in McGehee, Desha County, in 2013, and the camp was listed on the Arkansas Register of Historic Places on August 10, 2010. While little physical evidence of the camp remains, the struggles and difficulties faced by the Japanese at the Jerome incarceration camp are remembered.
LEARN MORE:
Encyclopedia of Arkansas: Jerome Relocation Center
Wikiwand: Jerome War Relocation Center
University of Arkansas: Remembering Jerome: The Forced Relocation of Japanese Americans in WWII
#apiaeveryday #japanese #japaneseamerican #japaneseamericanhistory #japaneseincarceration #concentrationcamps #jeromerelocationcenter #jerome #arkansas #wwii #forcedrelocation
