Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 26, 2008

Manzanar - July 3, 1942

Manzanar is most widely known as the site of one of ten camps where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. Located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in California's Owens Valley between the towns of Lone Pine to the south and Independence to the north, it is approximately 230 miles (370.1 km) northeast of Los Angeles. Manzanar was identified by the United States National Park Service as the best-preserved of the former camp sites, and was designated the Manzanar National Historic Site. Long before the first prisoners arrived in March 1942, Manzanar was home to Native Americans, who mostly lived in villages near several creeks in the area. Ranchers and miners formally established the town of Manzanar in 1910, but abandoned the town by 1929. Since the last prisoners left in 1945, former prisoners and others have worked to protect Manzanar and to establish it as a National Historic Site that preserves and interprets the site for current and future generations. The primary focus is the Japanese American Internment era, as specified in the legislation that created the Manzanar National Historic Site. (more...)

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