Incarcerees reported there was a lot of horse manure. History agrees.
April 28, 1942: The Tanforan Assembly Center — a converted racetrack — began detaining nearly 8,000 Japanese Americans.
Most of the people brought to Tanforan came from the San Francisco Bay Area — San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Mateo counties. A smaller group was taken from San Joaquin.
At its peak, the population reached 7,816. It was one of the largest assembly centers in the country, second only to Santa Anita.
Tanforan had been built for horses and crowds. Now it held families.
There were 180 buildings on site: 26 converted stables and 154 newly built barracks. But when the first detainees arrived, the barracks were not ready. They were sent to the stalls.
Dorothea Lange / U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
Japanese American families arrive at the Tanforan Assembly Center in 1942, carrying what they could, leaving everything else behind.
Courtesy of National Park Service
There were 180 buildings on site—26 converted stables and 154 newly built barracks. But when the first detainees arrived, the barracks weren’t ready.
A guard tower at Tanforan, 1942. Armed guards stood watch like at all the other camps across the system.
Dorothea Lange / U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
Inside a Tanforan barrack, 1942. The stalls had been whitewashed, but not cleaned. The smell of horse manure remained.
Dorothea Lange / U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
Outside a "newly assembled" Tanforan barrack, 1942. Mud, makeshift walkways, and unfinished buildings. Families were expected to live here.
Living Conditions
The stalls had been hastily whitewashed. But the conditions remained: Insects. Dung embedded in the walls. Floors still dirty, and no brooms were available in many cases.
Families were assigned to small, partitioned spaces. Later, some were moved to barracks. But even there, walls stopped short of the ceiling. Gaps let in wind. Privacy was minimal.
Outside, spring rains turned the grounds into mud. Poorly drained sewage gave the entire site an offensive stench.
The reports of horse manure were not exaggerations.
Keeping the Place Running
About 2,300 detainees were assigned to work crews.
They maintained the grounds, prepared food, and tried to make the place livable. Scrap lumber became furniture. Improvised tools became cleaning supplies.
Despite these efforts, sanitation remained a constant problem.
Tanforan was always meant to be temporary. Within months, people were transferred to more permanent camps inland, including Topaz in Utah.
The maximum population was reached on July 25, 1942. Soon after, the center began to empty.
Dorothea Lange / U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
At Tanforan, 1942. Maintenance, repairs, and construction were carried out by the incarcerees themselves, described as “volunteers.”
Dorothea Lange / U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
At Tanforan, 1942. Families were left to build their own living spaces from scrap.
Dorothea Lange / U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
At Tanforan, 1942. Meals meant standing in long lines.
Dorothea Lange / U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
Tanforan, 1942. The government spent the equivalent of over $22 million to build this camp. Decades later, it paid far more in reparations.
Dorothea Lange / U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
The racetrack is gone today, but the memory remains.
What it Cost
According to General John L. DeWitt’s Final Report, constructing the detention facilities at Tanforan cost over $1.1 million in 1942: more than $22 million today.
A significant investment.
Used to confine people without charges or trials.
Decades later, the U.S. government would issue a formal apology and pay $1.25 billion in reparations to those who had been incarcerated.
Today, the racetrack is gone. But the details remain in records, in photographs, and in memory.
Including the stench.