Name change likely to Tule Lake National Monument

“It was something we hoped would happen,” said Angela Sutton, acting superintendent for the Tule Lake Unit and Lava Beds National Monument. She said no formal steps will be taken until Trump acts on the bill.

Tule Lake’s name re-designation is a small part of the broad-sweeping, 260-page Senate Bill 47 National Resources Management Act that was easily approved by bipartisan votes — 92 to 8 in the Senate on Feb. 12 and 363 to 62 on Feb. 26 in the House of Representatives.

The bill was approved by all California representatives, including Reps. Doug LaMalfa and Tom McClintock, both Republicans from far northern California, and all Oregon representatives, including Rep. Greg Walden, whose district borders California.

Both California senators, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, and both Oregon senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, supported the bill.

The Tule Lake Unit of the WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument was established through executive action by President George W. Bush shortly before he left office in 2008. The park is scattered with most of its nine units in Hawaii and Alaska. When the presidential order was announced, Tule Lake was reportedly a late addition.

The Tule Lake Unit includes the Tule Lake Segregation Center and Camp Tulelake.

The Tule Lake Segregation Center is located near Newell. It spanned 7,400 acres and included a large infrastructure that included more than a thousand barracks plus other buildings.

At its peak, more than 18,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, were incarcerated at Tule Lake while another 1,800 soldiers plus teachers, nurses and other personnel staffed the facility.

Tule Lake, which opened in 1942 and closed in 1946, was the largest and most controversial of 10 sites. Originally a relocation center, Tule Lake became the nation’s only segregation and housed people branded “disloyal.”

Camp Tulelake, five miles of the city of Tulelake, was originally a Civilian Conservation Corps camp. During WWII, Japanese Americans were housed at the camp two different times — in 1943 after some Tule Lake men refused to answer the controversial “loyalty” questionnaire and, later, when internees from others camps were housed there to help harvest crops.

Later, Italian prisoners of war helped convert Camp Tulelake to accommodate German prisoner of war camp. At its peak, the camp housed 800 German POWs who helped plant, tend and harvest onions and potatoes.

Both Camp Tulelake and the stockade, one of the few remaining structures at Tule Lake, are open for ranger-led tours during the summer months.

A management plan for the Tule Lake Unit was completed last year. It provides long-term guidance for the area’s management with key issues including a year-around National Park Service presence, preservation of remaining historic buildings, and developing partnerships with local and regional groups and organizations. The plan, notably, does not recommend boundary adjustments.

Along with waiting for the president’s approval of the legislation, Sutton said no steps toward a name and management change will be made until later because Lava Beds/Tule Lake Superintendent Larry Whalon is on leave.

Anticipated changes will include redoing signs, bulletins and documents. Although Lava Beds/Tule Lake managers were aware of the proposed re-designation legislation, she said, “We haven’t ever discussed it (the name change) as a team.”

Shortly after the Tule Lake Unit was established in late 2008, efforts to become its own national monument have continued.

“Part of it,” Sutton explained, “was the day-to-day overseeing of the operations,” noting the distance between units in the WWII Valor National Monument. “While our stories are connected, they are also different.”