{"id":1839,"slug":"minidoka-national-historic-site-idaho","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Minidoka was the camp the desert held — the relocation center built on the Snake River Plain in 1942, officially called Hunt after its post office designation because Idaho already had a town named Minidoka. Five miles of barbed wire and eight watchtowers enclosed the 950 developed acres where 13,078 people — Americans from Oregon, Washington, and Alaska — were incarcerated between August 1942 and October 1945. Among them were the Bainbridge Island families — the first community removed under the first Civilian Exclusion Order — transferred from Manzanar at their own request, to be nearer home.","The WRA built it to mimic a small town — a 600-bed hospital, schools, library, theaters, ballparks — and the incarcerees made it a real one: gardens in the sagebrush, the Honor Roll board listing the sons who volunteered for the 442nd while their families stayed behind wire. George Takei, who was incarcerated as a child, narrates the park's film — the camp's memory carried by the generation that lived it as children.","After the war the land was distributed — homesteads claimed the camp acreage, and for decades only the stone guard house and waiting room at the Hunt Bridge remained standing. The 73-acre monument became a park in 2001; a barrack and a section of barbed wire have been returned and reconstructed on ground where almost nothing else was left.","Minidoka is the archive's Hunt file — the Idaho desert camp named for a post office, where 13,000 Americans were held behind wire that was torn down and a barrack had to be trucked back to stand where the camp had been."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Minidoka National Historic Site is the archive's erased-camp file — the relocation center on the Snake River Plain where 13,078 Japanese Americans were incarcerated, the land dispersed to homesteaders until only the stone guardhouse remained, now rebuilt piece by piece as a national park.","A camp that was farmed over keeps its guardhouse — the file's suggestion being that Minidoka's hold is the remnant: the basalt-and-concrete guard house that never left, on the plain where the barracks had to be brought back to prove the camp was real."]}],"name":"Minidoka National Historic Site","aliases":["Minidoka War Relocation Center"],"type":"INCARCERATION_SITE","type_label":"Incarceration Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","HISTORIC_SITE"],"groups":["dark-history","institutions"],"desc":"Rural former incarceration camp with preserved interpretive grounds.","full_desc":"An incarceration site in Jerome, Idaho, opened in 1942, Minidoka National Historic Site is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Rural former incarceration camp with preserved interpretive grounds. The archive files it under dark history. The dossier holds 2 documented facts — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. The site is open to visitors.","address":"1428 Hunt Road","city":"Jerome","county":null,"state":"Idaho","postal":"83338","region":"West","lat":42.717617,"lon":-114.515788,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":"Address is on-site visitor center. Some former camp buildings are on neighboring private property; no entry authorized.","ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":1942,"year_closed":1945,"year_demolished":null,"designation":"National Historic Site","current_use":null,"research_notes":"Included for documented public dark history. No paranormal or haunting claim inferred from suffering, deaths or abandonment. Site-specific access and precise coordinates require further research.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":67.9,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"Minidoka operated August 10, 1942–October 28, 1945, holding people forcibly removed from Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Minidoka National Historic Site's past is on record — the entry belongs to the verified layer beneath whatever lore attaches. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. 'Places: Minidoka National Historic Site' documents the entry. The date is part of the site's documented spine.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Places: Minidoka National Historic Site","url":"https://www.nps.gov/miin/learn/historyculture/places.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"~13,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated at Minidoka from 1942 to 1945. The documented date is 1942-08-10–1945-10-28. A documented history gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that spine. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. The detail is preserved in 'Minidoka National Historic Site'. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1942-08-10","date_end":"1945-10-28","confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Minidoka National Historic Site","url":"https://www.nps.gov/miin","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[{"name":"Minidoka closes","type":"INSTITUTION_CLOSURE","date_start":"1945-10-28","date_end":null,"description":"Minidoka closed on October 28, 1945, after confining some 13,000 Japanese Americans — most of them from Seattle and Portland — on a sagebrush plain in southern Idaho. The camp contributed a remarkable share of volunteers to the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team; families farmed sugar beets behind the wire while their sons fought in Europe.","evidence":"INSTITUTION_CLOSURE","source":{"name":"Places: Minidoka National Historic Site","url":"https://www.nps.gov/miin/learn/historyculture/places.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"name":"Minidoka incarceration","type":"INCARCERATION","date_start":"1942-08-10","date_end":"1945-10-28","description":"Minidoka opened August 10, 1942, on Idaho's Snake River plain — eventually confining some 13,000 people, most from Seattle and Portland. Incarcerees built the irrigation systems that still water the farms around it, and a remarkable share of its young men volunteered for the 442nd. The site's surviving barracks and honor roll are now an NHS.","evidence":"INCARCERATION","source":{"name":"Minidoka National Historic Site","url":"https://www.nps.gov/miin","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"parking":"Guard-tower lot and larger visitor-center lot","last_verified_at":"2026-09-14T10:36:21+00:00","source":{"name":"Places: Minidoka National Historic Site","url":"https://www.nps.gov/miin/learn/historyculture/places.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},"sources":[{"name":"Places: Minidoka National Historic Site","url":"https://www.nps.gov/miin/learn/historyculture/places.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Minidoka directions","url":"https://www.nps.gov/miin/planyourvisit/directions.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Minidoka National Historic Site","url":"https://www.nps.gov/miin","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"Rural former incarceration camp with preserved interpretive grounds.","incoming_value":"The Idaho camp where 13,000 were confined behind barbed wire.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"full_description","existing_value":"Minidoka National Historic Site is a incarceration site in Idaho. Rural former incarceration camp with preserved interpretive grounds. Minidoka operated August 10, 1942–October 28, 1945, holding people forcibly removed from Washington, Oregon and Alaska.","incoming_value":"Minidoka is the Jerome County internment site where ~13,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated 1942–45, preserved by the NPS.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"current_status","existing_value":"HISTORIC_SITE","incoming_value":"ACTIVE","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Included for documented public dark history. No paranormal or haunting claim inferred from suffering, deaths or abandonment. Site-specific access and precise coordinates require further research.","incoming_value":"Lore enrichment wave 2; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Minidoka National Historic Site","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minidoka_National_Historic_Site","desc":"Historic site in Idaho, USA","extract":"Minidoka National Historic Site is a National Historic Site in the western United States. It commemorates the more than 13,000 Japanese Americans who were imprisoned at the Minidoka War Relocation Center during the Second World War. Among the inmates, the notation 峰土香 or 峯土香  was sometimes applied.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Minidoka_National_Historic_Site_%28Entrance%29.jpg/330px-Minidoka_National_Historic_Site_%28Entrance%29.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":93,"lat":42.67861111,"lon":-114.24416667},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":2,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}