Licensing

Topaz - severe dust storms

To view video, Click Here. Mitsue M. talks about the severe dust storms and barren landscape of Topaz.

"It was out in the Sevier Desert with all the dust storms, you name it, cold in winter... the road was impassable, you get mud all over your feet and that sort of thing. When the wind blew, it blew the gravel so you had to -- and you were outside -- you had to hide behind the barracks or someplace. That's how it was. But the welcome mat when we arrived was this: you know, we got to a station called Delta, and of course there were buses there to transport us to our final internment camp. And as we went along we said, "This is plush, look at all the farmland." It looked real good to us. But all of a sudden what do we find? This area that they had opened up was Sevier Desert, I guess that's what they call it. Most of the sagebrushes were gone which loosened all the sand there. So when we got off the bus, guess what? We were welcomed with this terrible dust storm, just terrible. And besides, the barracks weren't quite finished either. There was no sheet rock in the interior, so that all the sand seeped through the roof wherever there's an opening. And my goodness, you'd wipe that one time and next minute you had to do it again and that's how it was."

Mitsue M. Interview - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

Topaz was located at 4,600 feet of elevation in west-central Utah, Topaz was set in Millard County near the town of Delta, 140 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Topaz Mountain was 9 miles northwest. The 19,800 acres of extremely flat terrain were within the Sevier Desert. Dust was a major problem. Temperatures range from 106 degrees in summer to -30 degrees in winter. Vegetation is mainly high desert brush.

Population Description: Most of those held in Topaz were from the San Francisco Bay area: Alameda, San Francisco, and San Mateo Counties in California.

To view facts and photos of Topaz, Click Here to view Densho's interactive Sites of Shame map. Then click on the red dot corresponding to Topaz. Courtesy of Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project