Camp Amache Moving Closer Toward NPS Designation

Reconstructed Barracks and Water Tower

Camp Amache, the Japanese-American Incarceration Camp in Granada during WWII, is moving closer to being considered a National Park Service site through the bi-partisan efforts of U.S. Senators Hickenlooper and Bennet and U.S. Representatives Neguse and Buck.

Camp Amache Main Entrance

The Prowers County Commissioners asked that their thanks for the recent efforts be offered to Senator Hickenlooper during a scheduled update meeting with the senator’s regional director, Kari Linker.

Hickenlooper outlined a bi-partisan bill in early October before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee along with Senator Bennet.  The bill was endorsed and supported by Colorado Representatives Joe Neguse and Ken Buck and asks that the Amache National Historic site become part of the National Park Service.  A hearing will have to be held by the Resources Committee before it can be introduced as a bill.

Any progress is good news, but that news has been slow in coming as even as far back as 2018, then U.S. Senator, Cory Gardner, introduced the Amache Study Act, one of the needed steps to determine the camp’s historical significance as well as the process required to include the camp in the current National Park Service sites.  The final act will be to have a Congressional designation to that end.

Numerous parties have expressed support for the designation, but it would be a logical addition, as Commissioner Tom Grasmick pointed out to Linker, that Amache would add another anchor in southeast Colorado to other historical sites.  “We have Bent’s Old Fort, the Sand Creek Site and Camp Amache would become a great attraction,” he explained, adding that the NPS designation would also serve to increase the number of employees at the site and increase awareness for this part of the county.

By Russ Baldwin