Historic Colorado Site a Reminder of a Dark Chapter in the U.S.

The state of Colorado has a lot of history dating back to the mining boom of the mid-1800s and all of the reminders left behind to this day, all the way back to prehistoric times with things like dinosaur fossils and petrified wood.

Read More: The Legacy Of Colorado's Oldest Gas Station: A Petrified Wood Wonder |

However, like any place, Colorado has some pages in the history books that it would like to forget, including numerous atrocities during the mining boom against Natives, blue-collar miners, and others, and even the presence of a Japanese internment camp that operated during WWII.

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While it might be more pleasant to take the cowardly way out and forget the atrocities of our past, employing cliches like, "ignorance is bliss" and "out of sight, out of mind," the phrase, "those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it" fits the best here.

Let's take a look at the Amache Japanese Internment Camp in Granada, Colorado.

Colorado's Amache Internment Camp in Granada Colorado

Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor which led the United States to join WWII, President Franklin Roosevelt approved Order 9066 which effectively relocated any and all Japanese-Americans living in the country to internment camps.

One of these camps was known as Camp Amache and was located near the Kansas border on the desolate eastern plains.

While there are numerous negative accounts of what Camp Amache was like during the war including hostility from nearby locals and the fact that it was one step away from being a full-fledged prison, the camp wasn't exactly like others in the U.S.

For example, the Japanese Americans that were forced to live there were also allowed to work a variety of jobs including law enforcement, and some even enlisted in the military to aid in the war. Unfortunately, over 30 of these service members never made it back home and are currently memorialized on the site of the old camp.

Since the war ended, numerous attempts have been made to protect what is left of Camp Amache and its history altogether, many of which have been successful.

Of course, there are plenty more stories that originated with the implementation of the camp and many of these can be found in an excellent documentary from Rocky Mountain PBS that you can watch here.