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The Poston War Relocation Center, located in Yuma County (now in La Paz County) of southwestern Arizona, was the largest (in terms of area) of the ten 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 at a distance of three miles from each other. Internees named the camps Roasten, Toastin, and Dustin, based on their desert locations. The Colorado River was approximately 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. However, Army commanders and officials of the Bureau of Indian Affairs 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." The combined peak population of the Poston camps was over 17,000, mostly from Southern California. At the time Poston was the third largest "city" in Arizona. It was built by Del Webb, who would later become famous building Sun City, Arizona and other retirement communities. The Poston facility was named after Charles Debrille Poston, a government engineer who established the Colorado River Reservation in 1865 and planned an irrigation system to serve the needs of the Indian people who would live there.〔Burton, J.; Farrell, M.; Lord, F.; Lord, R. ''Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites'': "(Poston Relocation Center )" (National Park Service, 2000). Retrieved 2014-08-07.〕 A single fence surrounded all three camps, and the site was so remote that authorities considered it unnecessary to build guard towers.〔 The thousands of internees and staff passed through the barbed-wire perimeter at Poston I, which was where the main administration center was located. Poston was a subject of a sociological research by Alexander H. Leighton, published in his 1945 book, ''The Governing of Men''. As ''Time Magazine'' wrote, "After fifteen months at Arizona's vast Poston Relocation Center as a social analyst, Commander Leighton concluded that many an American simply fails to remember that U.S. Japanese are human beings." ==Establishment of the camp== After overriding the Colorado River Reservation's tribal council, the BIA and WRA jointly took control of of tribal land and began construction in early 1942. Dell Webb began building Poston I on March 27, and his workforce of 5,000 completed the first camp less than three weeks later. Construction on II and III began soon after, contracted to be finished within 120 days.〔 In the meantime, Poston was partially opened on May 8, as the Parker Dam Reception Center, one of two such sites that augmented the 15 temporary "assembly centers" where Japanese Americans waited to be transferred to the more permanent WRA camps.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Parker Dam (detention facility) )〕 Approximately two-thirds of Poston's population were brought directly from their homes to what was then Parker Dam, and many of these early arrivals volunteered to help complete the still under construction camps.〔〔 Upon completion, the Poston site consisted of hundreds of residential barracks, a hospital, an administrative center, and guard and staff housing. The camp officially opened as the Colorado River Relocation Center on June 1, 1942, and the BIA relinquished its authority over Poston in 1943.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Poston War Relocation Center」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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