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Photograph of Topaz War Relocation Center
Photograph by Francis Stewart, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Topaz War Relocation Center Site

A National Historic Landmark. Built in 1942. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

From the record

“The Topaz War Relocation Center, also known as the Central Utah Relocation Center (Topaz) and briefly as the Abraham Relocation Center, was an American concentration camp in which Americans of Japanese descent and immigrants who had come to the United States from Japan, called Nikkei were incarcerated. President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, ordering people of Japanese ancestry to be incarcerated in what were euphemistically called "relocation centers" like Topaz during World War II.”

Wikipedia article Topaz War Relocation Center, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 26 National Register listings published here for Millard County · listed in 1974 · category: Site · built in 1942 · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

  • Address. 16 mi. NW of Delta, Delta, 84635
  • When was it listed? January 1974
  • Category. site
  • Census division. Delta
  • When was it built? 1942
  • National Register reference number. 74001934 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

2 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Topaz War Relocation Center Site in 2006, burning about 35 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause Fires
Debris and open burning1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
30 May 2006Debris and open burning5.0 acresUtah Division Forestry Fire State LandsSEVIER RIVER
21 May 2006Missing data/not specified/undetermined30 acresUtah Division Forestry Fire State LandsTOPAZ SLOUGH

Every fire recorded in Millard County

Mines and quarries near this property

6 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 6 workings within 5 miles of Topaz War Relocation Center Site: 4 plants, 2 past producers. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
(Facility) Smelter Knolls North Gravel PitsSand and Gravel, ConstructionPlantUnconsolidated Sediments
(Facility) Smelter Knolls North Gravel PitsSand and Gravel, ConstructionPlant
(Facility) Smelter Knolls South Borrow PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPlantUnconsolidated Sediments
(Facility) Smelter Knolls South Borrow PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPlant
Ut Dept Hwys Gravel Pit 14085Sand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Utah Highway Dept Gravel Pit #14085Sand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerUnconsolidated Sediments

Every working recorded in Millard County

Storms near this property

10 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Delta, the town this property stands in, in 10 storm reports between 1993 and 2014: 8 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado, 1 funnel cloud. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 2002Thunderstorm WindDelta$2,000no account filed
May 1993Thunderstorm WindDelta$50Thunderstorms developed along and behind the cold front as it continued to move south through the state. These thunderstorms moved eastward very slowly, and produced two different severe wind gusts. Some minor damage occurred in the eastern portion of the county. Shingles were blown off a few homes along with some tree limbs torn off.
May 2014Thunderstorm WindDelta-The Delta Bus Garage sensor recorded a peak wind gust of 62 mph.
June 2011Thunderstorm WindDelta-The A-Paid observer in Delta reported a maximum wind gust of 58 mph.
August 2002Thunderstorm WindDelta-A severe thunderstorm produced a wind gust of 61 mph (53 kts) in Delta.
July 2002Thunderstorm WindDelta-A severe thunderstorm in Delta produced a wind gust of 58 mph (50 kts).
September 1998Funnel CloudDelta-no account filed
May 1996Tornado (F0)Delta-no account filed
May 1994Thunderstorm WindDelta-no account filed
May 1994Thunderstorm WindDelta-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Millard County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

1 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Central Utah Relocation Center (Topaz)0.5 miles2007

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 74001934 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Millard CountyAll 26 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

  • Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
  • Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
  • How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
  • Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
  • Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
  • Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.