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United States · Arizona

Poston War Relocation Center

Low
Verified
Aging · 5mo ago
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How to send mail, money, and visit Poston War Relocation Center

Step-by-step guidance using the United States system — addresses, money services, visit booking, what to bring on your first visit.

Open toolkit
Photograph of Poston War Relocation Center
Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Gallery

From Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA where not otherwise stated).

  • "Table 1. Wartime Properties Identified in Public Law 102-248" (PART 2), from- Japanese Americans in World War II, a National Historic Landmark theme study (page 16 crop).jpg

    Photo by United States National Park Service via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • "Wartime Civil Control Administration Assembly Centers map, from- Japanese Americans in World War II, a National Historic Landmark theme study (page 118 crop) (cropped).jpg

    Photo by United States National Park Service via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • "Wartime Civil Control Administration Assembly Centers map, from- Japanese Americans in World War II, a National Historic Landmark theme study (page 118 crop).jpg

    Photo by United States National Park Service via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • Minidoka (Hunt), Gila River, Rohwer, Granada (Amache), Poston (Colorado River), Jerome War Relocation Centers 2010 (page 2 crop).jpg

    Photo by United States National Park Service via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • NPS internment-camp-map.gif

    Photo by U.S. National Park Service, restoration/cleanup by National Park Maps (https://npmaps.com) via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  • Poston Internment Camp building interior.jpg

    Photo by sonora ortiz via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Poston Internment Camp buildings 1.jpg

    Photo by sonora ortiz via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Poston Internment Camp buildings 2.jpg

    Photo by sonora ortiz via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Background

The Poston Internment Camp, located in Yuma County (now in La Paz County) in southwestern Arizona, was the largest (in terms of area) of the 10 American concentration camps operated by the War Relocation Authority during World War II. The site was composed of three separate camps arranged in a chain from north to south, three miles from each other. Internees named the camps Roasten, Toastin, and Dustin, based on their desert locations. The Colorado River was about 3 miles (4.8 km) to the west, outside of the camp perimeter. Poston was built on the Colorado River Indian Reservation, over the objections of the Tribal Council, who refused to be a part of doing to others what had been done to their tribe. Army commanders and officials of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, though, overruled the council, seeing the opportunity to improve infrastructure and agricultural development (which would remain after the war and aid the reservation's permanent population) on the War Department budget and with thousands of "volunteers".

Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.

Capacity

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Current population

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Occupancy

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Year opened

1942

Operational

Figures from official sources · verified 29 May 2026 · methodology

Facility profile

Operator

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Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

1942

Region

Arizona

Security level

—

Death-row facility

No

Conditions

No conditions summary available yet.

Visiting

No visiting information available.

Mailing

No mailing information available.

Practical info

Contact the operator's website for inmate-specific procedures.

Known issues

No major issues documented in our database.

Notable inmates

  • George Fujimoto Jr.
    1921–2011 · diarist
  • Toranosuke Fujimoto
    1882 · farmer
  • Pearl Mitsu Sonoda
    1918–2015 · ichthyologist

    Pearl Mitsu Sonoda (May 17, 1918 – March 4, 2015), was an American ichthyologist and biologist who was interned with her family in an American War Relocation Center during World War II because they had Japanese heritage.

Source: Wikidata + Wikipedia.

Contact & address

No public contact details available.

Conditions Risk Score

Derived signal — not a judgement. How it's calculated

—
Insufficient data
We don't have enough public data on this facility to score it. Have something to add? Send us a correction.

Related facilities

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Data completeness

16%

How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.

Sources

Cite this page

Under CC-BY-4.0. Include the URL and access date; the site is a living reference and entries can change.

APA
World Prisons. (2026). Poston War Relocation Center. Retrieved October 20, 2026, from https://worldprisons.com/prisons/poston-war-relocation-center
Chicago
"Poston War Relocation Center." World Prisons. Accessed October 20, 2026. https://worldprisons.com/prisons/poston-war-relocation-center.
BibTeX
@misc{worldprisons-poston-war-relocation-cente,
  author = {{World Prisons}},
  title = {Poston War Relocation Center},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://worldprisons.com/prisons/poston-war-relocation-center},
  urldate = {2026-10-20}
}