Manzanar

Manzanar War Relocation Center
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
U.S. National Historic Site
California Historical Landmark No. 850
Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 160
A hot windstorm brings dust from the surrounding desert, July 3, 1942
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Location	Inyo County, California
Nearest city	Independence, California
Coordinates	36°43′42″N 118°9′16″W / 36.72833°N 118.15444°W / 36.72833; -118.15444
Area	814 acres (329 ha)
Built	1942
Visitation	97,382[1] (2019)
Website	Manzanar National Historic Site
NRHP reference No.	76000484
CHISL No.	850
LAHCM No.	160
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	July 30, 1976[5]
Designated NHL	February 4, 1985[6]
Designated NHS	March 3, 1992[7]
Designated CHISL	1972[2][3]
Designated LAHCM	September 15, 1976[4]

Manzanar is the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II from March 1942 to November 1945. Although it had over 10,000 inmates at its peak, it was one of the smaller internment camps. It is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California's Owens Valley, between the towns of Lone Pine to the south and Independence to the north, approximately 230 miles (370 km) north of Los Angeles. Manzanar means "apple orchard" in Spanish. The Manzanar National Historic Site, which preserves and interprets the legacy of Japanese American incarceration in the United States, was identified by the United States National Park Service as the best-preserved of the ten former camp sites.

The first Japanese Americans arrived at Manzanar in March 1942, just one month after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, to build the camp their families would be staying in. Manzanar was in operation as an internment camp from 1942 until 1945.^[8] Since the last of those incarcerated left in 1945, former detainees and others have worked to protect Manzanar and to establish it as a National Historic Site to ensure that the history of the site, along with the stories of those who were incarcerated there, is recorded for current and future generations. The primary focus is the Japanese American incarceration era, as specified in the legislation that created the Manzanar National Historic Site. The site also interprets the former town of Manzanar, the ranch days, the settlement by the Owens Valley Paiute, and the role that water played in shaping the history of the Owens Valley.