Where was Manzanar located?

The site of the Manzanar War Relocation Center (a camp where Americans of Japanese descent from the West Coast were interned during WWII) is in the Owens Valley in California.  This is a valley between Sequoia National Park and Death Valley National Park, in the eastern part of California not far from the Nevada border.  The camp is roughly due east of Fresno and is about 230 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

The Owens Valley is very sparsely populated.  In the early 1900s, it was a thriving agricultural center (“Manzanar” means “apple orchard” in Spanish).  However, agriculture in the valley soon died out as the city of Los Angeles started buying up the rights to the water in the valley.  The city bought the rights so as to be able to run an aqueduct to bring the water to the city.  Because of this, the valley lost most of its population.  The remote location of the valley made it seem like an ideal place to house Americans of Japanese descent during the war since many Americans wanted them to be in out-of-the-way places where they could not possibly harm the war effort by providing help to Japan.

You can find directions to the site of the camp at this link.