Tuna Canyon Detention Station

Overhead view of the Tuna Canyon Detention Station Photo: M.H. Scott, Officer In Charge,Tuna Canyon Detention Station.Courtesy David Scott and the Little Landers Historical Society

Tuna Canyon Detention Station was a temporary holding facility used for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II in the Tujunga community of Los Angeles, California. Some Italian Americans, German Americans and Japanese Peruvians were also interned there. From this detention station, prisoners were later transferred to permanent internment camps..[1]

The detention camp was located at a former Civilian Conservation (CCC) Camp, constructed in 1933, in the Crescenta Valley, in the northern Verdugo Mountains north of La Tuna Canyon. The camp was converted into the Tuna Canyon Detention Station for the purpose of holding and processing "enemy aliens."[1] Administered by the Department of Justice, it opened on December 16, 1941, when the first group of detainees arrived from various Southern California towns and cities. Tuna Canyon held an average of 300 people at a time, and 1,490 Japanese or Japanese-American internees and about 1,000 Germans, Italians and Japanese Peruvians passed through the camp before being transferred to larger DOJ facilities like Fort Missoula, Fort Lincoln and Santa Fe.[2] The detention station was closed on October 1, 1943, and the site was used as a probation school after the war.[1]

In the 1960s, the property was sold and turned into the Verdugo Hills Golf Course. The Tuna Canyon Detention Station and camp sites are located in the southeastern area of the golf course, where the driving range and overflow parking were built.[1]

A portion of the former detention site, located at 6433 West La Tuna Canyon Road, was recognized as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument by the City of Los Angeles in 2013.[3][4] A housing developer, Snowball West Investments, is attempting to build on the land, and it has filed a lawsuit to contest that recognition.[5]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Masumoto, Marie. Tuna Canyon (Detention Facility). Densho Encyclopedia. Accessed February 11, 2015
  2. City Council Unanimously Declares Grove at Tuna Canyon Site a Historic Cultural Monument." Rafu Shimpo (June 26, 2013). Retrieved August 11, 2014.
  3. Rafu Shimpo (newspaper): "City Council unanimously declares grove at -tuna-canyon-site Site a Historic-Cultural Monument" (on 25 June 2013), 26 June 2013.
  4. Manzanar Committee Blog: "Manzanar Committee Calls On Los Angeles City Council To Designate Site of Tuna Canyon Detention Station As A Historic-Cultural Monument", the Committee’s official statement on the protection and preservation of the Tuna Canyon site, 8 June 2013.
  5. Manzanar Committee Blog: "Historic Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition Responds To Developer’s Lawsuit Against City, Details Mission, Goals, Vision For Monument", 13 August 2013.

External links

Coordinates: 34°15′00″N 118°17′00″W / 34.2500°N 118.2833°W / 34.2500; -118.2833

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