Fred Wada had four days. Four days to move 130 people out of California before they were sent to concentration camps.
Tom Endo explained what happened in the spring of 1942, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066.
“It was March 26 when it was determined that we had to leave California by the 29th of March, so that was a four-day period we had to finalize everything and get out of California,” he told KPCW.
Wada found George Fisher, a resident who owned 3,800 acres in Wasatach County, Utah. Fisher wanted $7,500 a year to lease the land, according to KUTV. Wada put down $500.
The abandoned mining town sat covered in deep snow when Wada’s wife arrived. She cried, according to their daughter Mary Wada Roath. “She realized that they were bringing all these people here into this little community. What kind of life is this going to be for them?” Roath told KUTV.
The group included farmers, carpenters, electricians, fishermen, auto mechanics, merchants and a pharmacist, Pacific Citizen reports. They removed tons of rocks and sagebrush with their hands. They transformed the land into productive farmland in three months, directly after the winter melted, according to KUTV.
Someone threw dynamite near one of the buildings. Twice. The man who did it later joined the Keetley baseball team and apologized, KUTV reports.
Utah Governor Herbert B. Maw sent Wada a telegram telling him to take everyone back to California, according to KUTV. Wada tore it up. “What can I do? I can’t take them back. They’ll all be put in internment camps,” Roath said her father told the governor.
Howard Yamamoto was only four years old when his family also fled to Keetley. Yet, he still remembers what happened before they left California.
“The FBI was swooping down and arresting many men. Japanese men. And they were taken away without any arrest warrants. Without any warning or without any representation of a lawyer,” he told KUTV.
More than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II. The Keetley Colony numbered 130. They lived free. They had already set up glee clubs, sports teams, and even enjoyed the snowy weather’s recreation activities.
After the war, about a third of the families stayed in Utah, according to Utah Humanities cited by JoySauce. The rest returned to California or moved elsewhere.
In 1995, the dam gates closed. Water rose in the valley. Keetley Farm disappeared beneath what Utahans now know as Jordanelle Reservoir in the town of Hideout, TownLift reports.
Chris Baier, a Hideout Town councilmember, discovered the history through an internet search, KJZZ reports. That led to naming two trails after the Japanese Americans in 2022, called “Wada Way West” and “Keetley West.”
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan formally apologized to survivors of the internment camps. That same year, survivors met in Culver City to tell their stories to younger generations.
That same commitment continues today. Diana Tsuchida founded Tessaku, an organization that preserves the survivor stories, according to KPCW. The name translates to “barbed wire.”
In 2022, survivors and descendants gathered for the Keetley Reunion at Jordanelle Reservoir.
Two temporary signs on the east side of Jordanelle Reservoir tell visitors what happened. Roath helped design the signs, KUTV reports. “I think Keetley represents courage, a little community of courage and belief,” she told KPCW.
According to KPCW, work is underway to install permanent historic plaques at Jordanelle State Park. However, a timeline has not been finalized.
Registration is closed for Common Ground: Building Together conference and gala award banquet in San Francisco on January 24. A shoutout to our planning committee: Jane Chin, Frank Mah, Jeannie Young, Akemi Tamanaha, Nathan Soohoo, Mark Young, Dave Liu, and Yiming Fu.
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This is the exile colony that was the subject Ryan Yamamoto’s documentary for KPIX Channel 5. His father is the four-year-old Howard Yamamoto that is mentioned in this article.