Topaz Oral History Project research files: Published articles (1920s-1980s)

Page 80

-12- were green tracts irrigated by the Owens River, that produced flavorful cantaloupes and other truck-garden specialities. ''35 Life magazine described the camp as a "scenic spot of lonely loveliness" and it described the dusty soil as "hard and arid but potentially fertile."36 Despite the scenic beauty and lack of barbed wire fences (Manzanar did not have any), the newcomers soon found that Manzanar was no 'idyllic country club.' It was, rather, in Life Magazine's words, 'a concentration camp designed eventually to incarcerate about ten thousand, in their words, "potential enemies of the United States"' . 37 The camp was the typical one mile square with 48 blocks each encompassing a mess hall, recreation hall, laundry, lavatories with showers and fourteen barracks with accommodations for 250 persons. The rooms were approximately twenty by twenty-five feet and each room or apartment was to be shared by two families numbering eight to ten people.38 "Additional buildings included a frame hospital and auxiliary buildings, offices, living quarters for the administrative staff, and utility buildings for warehouses, garages, construction, industry and agriculture."39 "After a year or so, Manzanar became self-sufficient, growing vegetables, raising chickens and hogs for consumption within Manzanar and for the other nine relocation centers set up by the WRA."40 Prior to the war, many apple trees were