Jerome Relocation Camp, Farm, 1995, panoramic photo collage, 22"x 59".

Research: Jerome Relocation Camp

Location: Drew and Chicot Counties, southeastern Arkansas.

Land: Farm Security Administration land.

Size: 10,000 acres.

Climate: Swamp Land; green and tropical; humid.

Population origins:

Los Angeles County(3,147)
Fresno County (2,013)
Sacremento County (993)
Honolulu County, Hawaii (445)

The population was about an even split between rural and urban.

Peak population: 8,497.

Date of peak: February 11, 1943.

Opening Date: October 6, 1942.

Closing Date: June 30, 1944; Jerome was in operation only 634 days, the shortest of any camp.

Project director(s): Paul Taylor and W.O. "Doc" Melton.

Community Analysts: Edgar C. McVoy and Rachel R. Sady.

Newpaper(s): Communique (October 23, 1942 to February 26, 1943);
Denson Tribune (March 2, 1943 to June 6, 1944).

% who answered question 28 of the loyalty questionnaire positively: 75.0%
Jerome had the highest percentage of persons answering negatively, giving a qualified answer, or refusing to answer.

Number and percentage of eligible citizen males inducted directly into armed forces: 52 (0.9%)
Jerome had the lowest percentage of eligible male citizens inducted into the armed forces besides Tule Lake.

Industry: Jerome had a sawmill that produced goods for internal consumption.

History: There were no guard towers at Jerome and the fences were low; this was the camp was surrounded by swamps inhabited by four species of the most deadly snakes in America. Farming here was difficult, but the completion in Novermber 1942 of a canal that drained off excess water resulted in some agricultural success.

General Histories of Jerome include:

Russell Bearden, "The False Rumor of Tuesday: Arkansas's Internment of Japanese Americans." (Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 41.4 (1982), pp. 327-39 and

"Life Inside Arkansas's Japanese American Relocation Centers." (Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 68 (Summer 1989); pp.169-96.)

Carole Katsuko Yumiba, "An Educational History of the War Relocation Centers at Jerome and Rohwer, Arkansas, 1942-1945.", Dissertation, University of Southern California, 1979.

Source: Japanese American History: An A to Z Reference, 1868 to the Present, by Brian Niiya. New York: Facts on File, 1993. This information is provided with the permission from the Japanese American National Museum and Brian Niiya, 1997.