Lordsburg

The panel leaves out Camp Lordsburg. Built from February 1942, it was the largest Army-run internment camp holding Japanese Americans in the continental United States, with up to about 1,500 Issei men. On the night of July 27, 1942, a sentry shot two of them, Hirota Isomura, 59, and Toshiro Kobata, 58, both ill and walking behind the column from the train siding; Isomura died at once and Kobata before dawn. They are buried at Fort Bliss. From 1943 the camp held up to 4,000 Italian and German prisoners of war until it closed in early 1946.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Lordsburg Elevation 4,245 Lordsburg was founded in 1880 on the route of the Southern Pacific Railroad, near that used by the Butterfield Overland Mail Co., 1858-1861. The town was named for Delbert Lord, an engineer with the railroad. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh landed his famed Spirit of St. Louis on Lordsburg. For years, the town catered to motorists traveling the Old Spanish Trail highway and later U.S. 80.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Lordsburg-Hidalgo Library — steps away
• McComas Incident — 20 mi