Antelope Springs (detention facility)

US Gov Name Antelope Springs Camp
Facility Type Additional Facility
Administrative Agency War Relocation Authority
Location Antelope Springs, Utah (39.3833 lat, -113.3000 lng)
Date Opened
Date Closed
Population Description Used for recreation by children from the Topaz concentration camp, which was 40 miles west.
General Description Located in a sparse pinyon and juniper forest at an elevation of 7,400 feet at the base of the 9,669-foot Swasey Peak, part of the House Range in western Utah. The closest town is Delta.
Peak Population
National Park Service Info


Antelope Springs was a former Civilian Conservation Corps camp site that was used as a recreational facility by inmates at the Topaz , Utah camp. The facility opened in the summer of 1943. Organized youth groups as well as adult hikers and explorers were trucked to the site forty miles west of Topaz for swimming, hiking, and picnicking.

  • Youth groups such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts used the camp as a recreational facility for swimming and hiking. Little information is available about this facility.
  • An article titled "Trilobite Fossils of Antelope Springs" by Frank Beckwith Sr. appears in the third issue of Trek , the literary magazine published at Topaz.

For More Information

Burton, Jeffery F., Mary M. Farrell, Florence B. Lord, and Richard W. Lord. Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites . Western Archeological and Conservation Center, National Park Service, 1999, 2000. Foreword by Tetsuden Kashima. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002.

Taylor, Sandra C. Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

Tunnell, Michael O., and George W. Chilcoat. The Children of Topaz: The Story of a Japanese-American Internment Camp . New York: Holiday House, 1996.

Last updated July 16, 2021, 7:46 p.m..