Amache Alliance
Partner and Friends organization for the Amache National Historic Site in Colorado
Our Mission
The mission of the Amache Alliance is to help preserve the WWII Granada Relocation Center (Amache) incarceration site and history in order to educate all Americans about the forced evacuation, relocation, and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Preservation of Amache’s stories, artifacts and historic structures, supports the interpretation and education mission. The alliance collaboratively works with other organizations to highlight the lessons of the Japanese American confinement and their relevance to the preservation of liberty and civil rights for all Americans today.
Background
The Granada War Relocation Center is located near the town of Granada, Colorado. The relocation center, known more commonly as Amache was one of 10 centers constructed in the United States during World War II for the purpose of interning Japanese Americans and people of Japanese descent. More than 10,000 people passed through Amache and, at its peak, it housed over 7,300 internees, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens.
The central section of Amache was 640 acres (one square mile), made up primarily of 29 blocks of Army-style barracks. Each block had a mess hall, laundry, toilets, and a shower room. The internees were encouraged to make improvements to the center and responded by constructing koi ponds and gardens, planting trees between rows of barracks, and developing community areas to make life more livable.
After the war, Amache's agricultural lands reverted to private farming and ranching while its buildings were demolished or removed. Today, the cemetery, a reservoir, a water well and tank, the original road network, concrete foundations, watch towers, and trees planted by the internees still remain. In addition, the original security perimeter fence surrounds the site.
The Granada Relocation Center (Amache), a National Historic Site, is located on CO-Rd 23 5/10, two miles west of Granada, CO. Visit Amache.org for visitation information.
