Mayer (detention facility)

The small town of Mayer in Arizona is located near Prescott, 75 miles northwest of Phoenix in Yavapai County. Joseph Mayer of New York founded the town and opened a hotel and a stage stop in 1881. Before the Euro-Americans the earliest culture was the ancient people the Hohokams, their descendants became the Yavapai, and are now the present day Yavapai-Prescott tribe. ^[1]

The camp site was a former Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp Mayer that was abandoned during the 1930s. The CCC camps were created through the Works Project Administration by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to create employment throughout the U.S. during the depression. The camp contained much of the necessary infrastructure such as barracks, a recreational hall, bathhouses, latrines, a school building, infirmary, utilities, and roads. ^[2] The Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA) brought it back into operation to house "evacuated" persons of Japanese ancestry from the southern part of Arizona at the cost of $12,303.13 to restore. ^[3]

The Mayer Assembly Center was the smallest of all the assembly centers comprising 69 families or 245 inmates mainly from the Salt River Valley, a farming community in the Maricopa County. Military Area 1 had established an arbitrary and senseless boundary that ran along Highway 95 and 60, dividing the state of Arizona in half. The boundary continued along Grand and Van Buren Streets, bisecting Phoenix. Those living south of that boundary had to either move across the boundary to the "Free Zone" on short notice (which a number of families did) or remain to face the uncertainties of eviction and incarceration to Mayer. ^[4] Encompassed by the boundaries set by Civilian Exclusion Order #38, on May 3, 1942, they arrived at Mayer on May 7, 1942. ^[5] The manager in charge at Mayer was Thomas B. Rice, and the camp was administered by the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA). ^[6]

There was to be another "assembly center" in Arizona located at another abandoned and refurbished CCC camp site called Cave Creek, Arizona, located 34 miles north of Phoenix. However, due to the small target population of Japanese Americans who moved out the area during the " voluntary evacuation " period there was no need for Cave Creek Assembly Center and the 245 evictees were all sent to Mayer Assembly Center where there was a sufficient amount of housing to accommodate all the evictees. ^[7]

There were religious services conducted in Mayer Assembly Center according to Reverend Lester Suzuki where members of the Phoenix Free Methodist Church and the Mesa Japanese Methodist Church conducted weekly services and prayer meetings during their brief time until they were transferred to Poston. ^[8] The local newspapers printed that there were gardens planted and organized recreational activities.

Among those incarcerated at Mayer Assembly Center was the famed jockey Joe Yoshio Kobuki (Kokomo Joe) who had worked at the Santa Anita and Tanforan racetracks before WWII and which ironically became "assembly centers" that would incarcerate his fellow Japanese Americans. ^[9]

In Edwin McDowell's article in the Pacific Citizen Henry Takemori, a former journalist, and his wife Kay owned a grocery store in Phoenix, Arizona. Despite being outside of Military Zone 1, they were ordered to move by the military because they were too close to the airport. The Takemoris had to make the decision to move their business to where it would be hard to keep the business going due to greater prejudice in the town or to sell their store and the contents and go to the assembly center. The decided to sell but took a tremendous loss, since greedy buyers knew that if they held out the Takemoris would be desperate to sell at a low price before they would be forced to leave. They finally had to sell their $15,000 property for a mere $800, and on May 8, 1942 they joined the 242 former residents along with their family and friends on a Greyhound bus for Mayer Assembly Center. ^[10]

At around the same time there was a scam that victimized the 65 desperate Japanese American families who were farmers in the Salt River Valley. The two swindlers behind the scheme was a private investigator included a former peace officer posing as FBI agents. Their scheme was to collect $50 each from the Japanese Americans to avoid "evacuation" and to be allowed to continue to farm with the pretense that their produce would go to the U.S. Army, Red Cross, and hospitals. The two swindlers were caught in a trap planned by federal agents on the Sanichi Ishikawa farm as they attempted to collect $250.00 from the family. After the incident the Ishikawa family was sent to Mayer Assembly Center. ^[11]

According to Lieutenant General DeWitt's revised Final Report, Japanese Evacuation From the West Coast, 1942 , there were no births or deaths, and no crimes committed at Mayer Assembly Center during its short term. Mayer Assembly Center was in operation for the shortest time of all the assembly centers from May 7, 1942 to June 2, 1942 a total of about 27 days. They were all transferred on June 2, 1942, to the permanent concentration camp Colorado River or Poston at Parker, Arizona. ^[12]

There are no remains of Mayer Assembly Center today due to the construction of Highway 69 going right through it and subsequent development. ^[13] According to the National Park Service in the National Historic Landmark Survey: Japanese Americans in World War II, no federal historic recognition is recommended for this property. ^[14]

The Japanese American families returned to the central valley, and, alongside those who were able to remain, re-established their farms and businesses, some of which have became very successful.

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. The Mayer section of 2000 version accessible online at http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/anthropology74/ce16c.htm .