This guide is dedicated to Thomas Ivie. He created this content-rich original exhibit. Text was pulled directly from the historical Wyoming newspapers, specifically the Heart Mountain Sentinel, a part of Wyoming Newspapers. The exhibit also uses photographs, drawings, and video from the American Heritage Center (Estelle Ishigo Photograph Collection) at the University of Wyoming and Wyoming PBS.

Thomas was the WSL’s Research & Statistics Librarian, a position he had held since June 2015. He originally joined the WSL on October 30, 2013, as the Digital Initiatives Librarian working on the Wyoming Newspapers project. Thomas’s career spanned over 20 years in state, academic, school, and public libraries. He passed away June 5, 2021.

A note on names:

Heart Mountain Relocation Center was named for its proximity to the 8,000-foot tall mountain of the same name located 10 miles northwest of Cody, Wyoming, but you may find this historic camp called other things in your research. As time has passed, the camps where Japanese Americans were held during World War II are associated with many different names. During WWII, camps were referred to as Civilian Assembly Centers, Relocation Camps, Internment Camps, and Detention Camps. Civilian Assembly Centers were temporary camps where Japanese Americans were first sent after being removed from their communities. Relocation Centers, also called Internment Camps, were permanent locations where Japanese Americans were incarcerated after they left the Civilian Assembly Centers. Detention Camps housed internees that were considered to be disruptive or of special interest to the U.S. Government. Heart Mountain was a Relocation Center/Internment Camp and was active from August 1942 to November 1945. Today, Heart Mountain is referred to as the Heart Mountain WWII Japanese American Confinement Site.

Since the end of WWII, there has been an ongoing debate among scholars as to the appropriate terminology to use when addressing the name of camps where Japanese Americans were held. During WWII, the most commonly accepted name was Relocation Centers or Internment Camps. Today, these camps are being referred to by some as American Concentration Camps or Concentration Camps. The term "concentration camp" is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as “a camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group which the government has identified as dangerous or undesirable.” Referring to Japanese American camps as Concentration Camps is not meant to confuse or refer the experience of Japanese Americans to the Nazi Concentration Camps in Europe during WWII, or to diminish the severity or impacts of the Holocaust. The term recognizes that both were instances during WWII where a group in power removed a minority population from the general population with the rest of that society allowing the removal to happen.

Further resources:

For more information on the Heart Mountain Internment Camp, see these resources:

Northwest College faculty member Aura Newlin provides a present day look back at the Japanese Internment Camp at Heart Mountain.

"Aura Newlin - Japanese Americans in Wyoming" on Wyoming Chronicle, courtesy of Wyoming PBS.

Heart Mountain Sentinel

Heart Mountain Internment Camp.

October 24, 1942 - November 2, 1945

Image Credits

All Estelle Ishigo drawings are from 1942-1945 at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, courtesy of the American Heritage Center. See more in the AHC's Estelle Ishigo digital collection. Photographs from the digital collections at the AHC. Newspaper images are from Wyoming Newspapers.

Copyright notice: Digitized collection materials are accessible for educational and personal research purposes.

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