Tule Lake Relocation Center

The Tule Lake Relocation Center, seen here in 1947, is located 35 miles southeast of Klamath Falls, Oregon, near Newell and Tulelake, California. It opened on May 27, 1942 and eventually interned 18,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. After the center closed in March 1946 and the internees had dispersed throughout the nation, the War Relocation Authority returned the land to the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR). The BOR sold small parcels of the site to private investors and to the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans), and sold many of the center’s buildings and structures to returning war veterans. The veterans removed the buildings or dismantled them for scrap material.