Amache National Historic Site

After my hike at Picture Canyon, I made the long drive north to the small town of Granada, Colorado to check out the relatively new Amache National Historic Site which preserves the site of a Japanese American incarceration camp. 

My first stop was the site of the actual camp.

There was a map of the site that I used to find my way around and visit the different points of interest. My first stop was the historic reservoir. 

 From there I drove through some of the areas where barracks once stood that housed the incarcerated Americans. 

One of the few buildings still standing from the camp is the concrete remains of the Co-op Store. 

My next stop was the very powerful cemetery. I can't imagine what it would have been like to have your family forcibly removed from your home and then to lose a loved one in a desolate place where you had no choice to live. 

I spent quite q bit of time in contemplation at the cemetery before I moved on to a few reconstructed structures. First was the water tank. It was moved out of the site but eventually rebuilt in its original location.

Then, I checked out the rebuilt watch tower and rebuilt barracks building.

The rebuilt Recreation Hall was my next point of interest.

My last stop at the incarceration site was a place where prisoner signatures could be found in the concrete foundation of a former barracks building.

The signatures are concrete evidence of a sad chapter in American history. Real peoples' lives were uprooted and destroyed for the supposed good of our nation during a time of war. Interestingly, there are many trees growing out of cracks in the concrete of these barracks. 

I find the tenacity of these trees symbolic of the human spirit of those who once lived in the site. This was my second visit to a Japanese American internment site this year. The other site being Minidoka in Idaho. These are important places that help to tell an embarrassing, but important part of our nation's history. I finished my visit to Amache with a stop at the visitor center which is housed in an old bank building. I couldn't spend too much time at the site though, as I still had a long drive home. I was glad to have made this visit as part of my trip to the plains of eastern Colorado.