Rohwer Relocation Center Memorial Cemetery, Arkansas Highway #1, Rohwer, Desha County, AR

Entry and Third Place Recipient (tie) 2011 HALS Challenge: Celebrating Cultural Landscapes of Diversity

Significance: The Rohwer Relocation Center Memorial Cemetery in Rohwer, Arkansas is the most intact remnant of the former Rohwer Japanese-American internment camp, and as such it is the most powerful visible reminder of this difficult period of history. The Rohwer cemetery is also one of only three remaining cemeteries in the ten camps that were created during World War II to hold United States citizens and immigrants of Japanese descent (the other two are in Manzanar, California, and Granada, Colorado). Of these three, the cemetery at Rohwer is the largest and most artistically detailed, featuring monuments that were designed and built by internees to memorialize fellow internees who died both at the Center and while serving in the US Army during the war. It also serves as a resilient display of both Japanese cultural heritage and American patriotism, despite confinement by the country to which they pledged their allegiance.

Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N44

Survey number: HALS AR-4

Building/structure dates: ca. 1942- ca. 1945 Initial Construction

Building/structure dates: ca. 1961 Subsequent Work

Building/structure dates: ca. 1967 Subsequent Work

Building/structure dates: ca. 1967- ca. 1980 Subsequent Work

Building/structure dates: ca. 1982 Subsequent Work

Building/structure dates: ca. 1990- ca. 1995 Subsequent Work

National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 92001882

cemetery lot enclosures graves monuments and memorials markers monuments concrete concrete walkways tombstones fences barbed wire fences trees cherry trees concentration camps relocation camps war world war ii arkansas robert adcock american legion department of arkansas arkansas and 146 army corps of engineers francis biddle maurice lee britt buford r connor clark dixon orval e faubus harry fujioka hayashima historic american landscapes survey koheiji horizawa michael hoshiko joseph hunter japanese american citizens league ray d johnston adeline lee linebarder senne construction company mike masaoka missouri pacific railroad okuda older worker community service program project green thumb franklin delano roosevelt george sakaguchi social welfare department chris stevens henry l stimson united service organizations university of arkansas at little rock ualr public history program war relocation authority frank white george yada sam yada bunroku yoshino tad yosimine rohwer relocation center memorial cemetery rohwer arkansas highway desha county landscape plans plan library of congress national register of historic places california

1967

Library of Congress

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