Mary Blackburn's Heart Mountain Relocation Center Papers, Collection #11396
Mary and Chester Blackburn homesteaded in 1947 on land that had been part of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. After learning the history of the Center, they and others founded the Heart Mountain Relocation Center Memorial Association. They worked closely with Bill Hosakawa, a former internee, to bring together other internees to create the memorial. The Blackburns traveled extensively giving presentations on the Center's history. The collection contains a written copy of their presentation, a videotape of photographs that accompanied the presentation, a video of Mary Blackburn's story, and information regarding the Center.
Grace Thorson Brown, Collection #11453
Brown was employed as an elementary teacher at Heart Mountain Relocation Center for the 1942-1943 school year. She left to continue her education at the University of Wyoming. Her papers contain material related to her Heart Mountain experiences, including newspaper clippings, photographs of students and teachers, student newspapers, and some employment records. War Relocation Authority documents and correspondence are included, along with Japanese American National Museum information regarding an event honoring former relocation camp teachers in 2005.
John Franklin Carter, Collection #1670
Carter was a New Deal columnist syndicated under the pen name of “Jay Franklin.” He was an ally of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and acted at various times as Roosevelt’s unofficial observer to supplement official intelligence reports. In this capacity, he and his lead agent Curtis B. Munson investigated Japanese communities to assess their loyalty to the U.S. Through these investigations, Carter became convinced of their loyalty and opposed their incarceration. His papers contain White House intelligence dated 1940 to 1945 (Box 2) and World War II reminiscences (Box 3).
Heart Mountain Relocation Center Records, 1943-1945, Collection #9804
This collection contains the charter of Heart Mountain with council enactments, community council minutes, a 1944 community government report, charter, transcripts regarding the trial of Tom Yamada who was a Heart Mountain juvenile charged with assault, copies of the Center’s newspaper, and documents regarding closing the Center. Digitized content is available online.
Lester C. Hunt Papers, Collection #270
Hunt was a Wyoming governor and United States senator. He was elected governor in 1942 and 1946 and U.S. Senator in 1948, a position he held until his death in 1954. Box 1 of his papers contain materials related to the Center while he was Wyoming governor. Digitized Box 1 scans are available online.
Estelle Ishigo Sketches, Collection #10368
Artist Estelle Ishigo, née Peck, married Arthur Ishigo, a Japanese American, in 1928. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, both lost their jobs and her husband was interned. She followed him and they were both assigned to Heart Mountain. She used her artwork to document life there. In 1972 she published Lone Heart Mountain, a recollection of her experiences at the Center, along with her sketches and drawings of the camp. The collection contains 101 photographs of her sketches made while at Heart Mountain. Digitized scans are available online.
T. Blake Kennedy, Collection #405
Kennedy served as a U.S. District Judge of Wyoming from 1922 to 1955. Kennedy was the presiding judge in United States v. Fujii in which 63 resisters from Heart Mountain were indicted by a grand jury in Cheyenne, Wyoming, for draft evasion. Boxes 1 and 2 of his papers contains his unpublished memoir. Box 2 also contains correspondence regarding the 1944 court case.
James H. Knights Papers, Collection #2642
Knights spent more than thirty years with the United States Bureau of Reclamation as a civil engineer. His papers contains materials related to his involvement in Bureau of Reclamation construction projects. Series 3 of his papers contains material related to Heart Mountain, including facilities planning.
Susan McKay Papers, Collection #400036
McKay was a professor of nursing at the University of Wyoming from 1966 to 1975, and then went into private practice as a psychologist before returning to the UW School of Nursing in 1987. She became adjunct and later moved to UW Women's Studies in 2001. Her papers contain research materials, audio tapes, and transcripts of interviews with former internees on maternal health care and childcare at Heart Mountain. Her research resulted in a book, The Courage Our Stories Tell: The Daily Lives and Maternal Child Health Care of Japanese American Women at Heart Mountain (2002).
Bill Manbo Papers, Collection #9982
Bill Manbo Sr. was a Japanese American internee at Heart Mountain who surreptitiously took photographs of everyday life and events in the camp, including children at play, events, and buildings. The collection contains 30 color slides of scenes from the Center dated 1942 to 1944. Digitized content is available online.
Andrew Mayeshiba, Collection #12615
Mayeshiba was born in Los Angeles in 1921 and during WWII spent three years at Heart Mountain. His papers contain correspondence while he was interned at the Center.
John A. Nelson Papers, Collection #5325
Nelson was administrative officer and later assistant project director of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center from July 1942 to June 1943, when he was drafted into the Army. His wife Viola Nelson was a secretary and later a personnel officer at Heart Mountain from 1942 to 1945. His papers include typed transcriptions plus a few handwritten pages of the diary he kept while at Heart Mountain, several speeches about the War Relocation Authority and Japanese internment, internee records, a chronology of evacuation and relocation, records from the War Relocation Authority, pamphlets related to Japanese American internment. Digitized content is available online.
Milward L. Simpson Papers, Collection #26
Simpson was a prominent Cody, Wyoming, attorney and was chairman of the local Civilian Defense during World War II. Later he was Governor of Wyoming from 1955 to 1959 and U.S. Senator from 1962 to 1967. Box 146 of his law office files contains correspondence and other documents related to Heart Mountain. Digitized Box 146 scans are available online.
Nels H. Smith Papers, Collection #9880
Smith was Wyoming’s governor from 1939 to 1943. His papers contain correspondence, photographs, notes, reports, bills, case files, invitations, bound materials, and clippings which primarily document his career from 1938 to 1943. Box 3 contains correspondence about Heart Mountain from 1941 to 1942. Digitized Box 3 scans are available online.