A HUGE part of my history and my family. After the war, somehow a family friend ended up with all the Japanese barracks. My grandfather at that point went into the house moving business. He moved ALL the barracks, and bought several of them. They were 20 wide by 120 long. He would cut them into thirds, and make 20 by 40 houses out of them. Today, there are still hundreds of them scattered out across southeast Arkansas because there actually were TWO relocation camps in that area. This one (Rohwer) and another one just south of McGehee at Jerome. Like Dwane Powell said, our school cafeteria and field house were old barracks, so was our band hall. My first home (that we owned) was made up of two of them, I was 1 1/2 years old. The entire south end of 2nd St. in McGehee was made up of these 20 x 40 houses, my grandfather made rent houses out of them. McGehee folks might remember the Skyway drive-in. It was one of the old barracks. There is a church in McGehee that is made up of two of the buildings. Farmers bought a lot of them and used them as tenant houses. QUITE a history for that corner of the state. Ill for sure have to watch this documentary.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 04:14:58 +0000
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