Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1942-08-28
ARMY ENGINEERS
BUILD JAP CAMP
IN RECORD TIME
TOWN FOR 1850 NIPPONESE Is
FINISHED NEAR CODY
IN SIXTY DAYS

1OWN FOR TO- ~ NIPPONESE is
FINISHED NEAR CODY
IN SIXTY DAYS
In the sage country OF northern
Wyoming. army engineers have fin
ished town for 10000 japanese in
Just 90 days.
A barracks-type apartment building
for six families Is built from founda-
ton to roof in 50 working minutes.
Thereu be 456 Of these apartment
houses in the 19-block site of the Heart
Mountain japanese relocation center.
The center is IL miles north OF Cody,
familiar to American travellers as the
eastern gateway to Yellowstone park
The Heart Mountain camp. complete
with modern sewage disposal plant and
. water system with a million gallon
reservoir and filtration plant, will be-
come Wyoming's fifth largest city, five
times larger than Cody itself
The first nail on the center project
was pounded June 8. japanese evacu-
eeS-including millionaire Industrial
lists, fishermen. farmers and laborers
were moved in this month from
crowded temporary assembly centers
in California, Washington and Oregon.
Ten such camps now are mushroom
ing in the empty spaces OF the noun
tain states and in Arkansas.
All are rush jobs because the west
ern defense command wants the Japa-
nese shifted as quickly as possible into
interior areas, where saboteur can
find little but wide open spaces to
work on.
VT oil nt
an example of American talent for
organization and assembly line output
A Story Of Speed
From the time the site was picked,
In a 41,O00-acre public domain tract,
this is the story OF how the center
was built:
June l, Col. Lewis A. Pick of Omaha,
division engineer of the Missouri di-
vision, corps of engineers, got his Or
ders: Finish the camp in 60 days"
Starting from scratch with a tele-
phone, Colonel Pick had to find and
put on the job an architectural engi-
neer and construction contractors and
have shipped to the campsite l3,0OO,-
600 board feet of lumber, nails, bull
dozers, power shovels, trenching ma
chimes and draglines.
Besides the 456 apartment buildings
and the water and sewer systems, the
town plan called for 80 mess halls, 80
recreation buildings and SO laundry
and bath buildings for the japanese
as well as 10 administrative buildings,
II hospital group buildings, q ware
houses, and l3 structures Tor military
police quarters.
New orders for lumber would have
taken four months, at least, TO I'LL. so
Colonel Picks office started borrowing
available material from air base and
ordnance plant projects IN iowa, Kan
sas and Nebraska. Copper wire was
picked I'D from the rural electrifica-
tor administration in Texas.
All emergency materials were on
their way to center site even before
the Burlington railroad could build
a 4O-car siding.
An engineering company staff, ex-
pert on hydroelectric power installa-
lions but inexperienced in 1ough ana
tumble town construction, was moved
in from the Fort Peck dam.
All this preparation was done or
under way in the week before June o,
when Mai. j. C. Robbers of Minneapo-
lis. former assistant Minnesota hgn-
way maintenance engineer, arrived
from Sioux Falls, S. D., to take charge
as area engineer. =,
With plans drawn on the BACK OF
an envelope. the first apartment build
ing was started one morning. The next
day the construction contractors
moved in their field office staff.
COwhandS On JOB
full force of $500 workerS-many
of them cowhands, tourist guides ana
coal miners-soon hit the pace OF o9
working minutes to pound together the
barracks buildings lao feet long and
20 feet wide.
The engineers will leave the interior
finishing of the apartments TO the
japanese.
"They'u have a whole winter before
another crop season and there VIII
have to be work to keep them pussy
as soon as they get here" Major Rob-
bers says.
The Japanese will work for the wars
duration to convert a Sagebrush lano
into fields of peas, beans ana POTATOES.
The limited States army's objective Is
tn make the evacueeS from the "a
cific coast take care Of themselves.
At the Heart Mountain camp, they
also will carry forward the tederal pu-
reau,s Heart Mountain irrigation prof.
ect. which was halted by the outpreak
of war. They'll have 41,OOO acres OF
n,,blic domain land to work on. 1rrl-
cation water. can be turned into l4,ooo
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