Camp Harmony

The Puyallup Assembly Center, called Camp Harmony, occupied the Western Washington State Fairgrounds in Pierce County. The NPS Japanese Americans in World War II theme study says it was occupied from April 28, 1942, until September 12, 1942, with a maximum population of 7,390. People held there were from Washington and Alaska. The grounds were split into Districts A, B, C, and D, each fenced, with barracks in parking lots, inside the racetrack, and under the grandstand.

NPS says Seattle’s Japantown residents were detained at Puyallup before being sent to Minidoka in Idaho. A Minidoka landscape study says 212 people from Puyallup arrived on August 10, 1942, then about 500 a day from Puyallup and later Portland, and that by September 14, 1942, Minidoka held 8,381 people.

No assembly-center buildings remain. NPS notes a George Tsutakawa sculpture and two plaques in a courtyard near the administration building. Highway 512 now crosses the south end of the site. This is the Seattle–Tacoma path to Minidoka, distinct from Bainbridge Islanders, whom NPS says were sent first to Manzanar. The sources below are National Park Service pages.