Hunt

The sign's words are the government's. Minidoka, which the War Relocation Authority called a relocation center and the post office called Hunt, was a concentration camp for Japanese Americans forced from Washington, Oregon and Alaska; at its peak in March 1943 it held 9,397 people, one of the largest cities in Idaho. The Supreme Court decision the sign dates to 1945 came on December 18, 1944: Ex parte Endo, brought by Mitsuye Endo, held that the government could not detain a citizen it conceded was loyal. The last prisoners left on October 28, 1945.

What the plaque says

Hunt Excluded from their West Coast homes by military authorities, more than 9000 Japanese Americans occupied Hunt Relocation Camp 4 miles north of here between 1942 and 1945. Until they could resettle in other places, they lived in wartime tarpaper barracks in a dusty desert, where they helped meet a local farm labor crisis, planting and harvesting crops. Finally a 1945 Supreme Court decision held that United States citizens no longer could be confined that way, and their camp became Idaho's largest ghost town. 340

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Minidoka National Historic Site — 2.4 mi
  The prisoners built a board for the names of their sons in the Army. When the camp was given away as farms, the board was lost.
• Shoshone Falls — 7.6 mi
  Higher than Niagara, and turned up and down on a schedule. What reaches the rim is whatever the canals leave.
• Perrine Bridge — 9.6 mi
  Four hundred and eighty-six feet of air between deck and river, and the one span in the country you may jump from without asking.

More markers nearby

• Prehistoric Hunters — steps away
• Hansen Bridge — 6.7 mi
• Emigrant Road — 8.8 mi
• Shoshone Falls — 9.7 mi