Abandoned Towns
The Topaz memorial with its flagpole and a stone plaque on the flat desert, with rain falling from dark clouds in the distance

Topaz

For three years this square mile of the Sevier Desert held thousands of Japanese Americans behind barbed wire. The barracks were sold off in 1945. Foundations, the fence and a memorial remain, and a museum in Delta tells the story.

39°24′52″N 112°46′22″W · ≈4,570 ft

Photo: mliu92 from San Mateo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Private land, open to visit

The Topaz site is privately owned and protected by the Topaz Museum, which asks visitors to follow its site rules: drive and park only on existing roads, leave every artifact where it lies, no metal detectors or digging, no drones, no camping or fires, and stay out when the site is muddy. Visit the museum in Delta first.

Overview

A city behind barbed wire

Looking down a main road of the Topaz camp, October 18, 1942
Looking down a main road of the Topaz camp, October 18, 1942 · Photo: Tom Parker, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Topaz was one of ten camps the War Relocation Authority built after Executive Order 9066 to hold Japanese Americans removed from the West Coast. Most of the people sent here came from the San Francisco Bay Area, by way of the Tanforan and Santa Anita assembly centers, and nearly two thirds were American-born citizens. The camp opened on September 11, 1942, before it was finished, and the first snow fell in October.

The living area covered about a square mile, with 34 residential blocks of tarpaper barracks, mess halls and shared laundries and baths, two elementary schools, a high school, a hospital and churches, inside a barbed-wire fence with guard towers. Farms around it covered thousands more acres. The Topaz Museum counts a peak population of 8,100 and 11,212 people processed in all; with staff, Wikipedia says, Topaz was the fifth-largest city in Utah. In April 1943 a sentry shot and killed James Wakasa near the fence, and the camp stopped work in protest.

Topaz closed on October 31, 1945. The government sold the buildings, the pipes and the poles, and the desert took back the rest. Since 1983 the Topaz Museum Board has collected the camp's story, built a museum in Delta and bought nearly all of the central square mile, which it now protects as a National Historic Landmark.

Video

The site and the museum in Delta

A summer visit to the camp site and the Topaz Museum. On the site, small signs stand in the greasewood where the hospital, Mountain View and Desert View elementary schools, numbered blocks, the sentry house, main gate, guard tower, fire station, baseball field and post office were. The camera finds the memorial flagpole, concrete slabs and stone footings, an open manhole, broken brick and piles of rusted pipe. In Delta it tours the exhibits, a recreated family room and the rebuilt recreation hall behind the museum. The narration calls Topaz the sixth-largest city in Utah; Wikipedia and the Topaz Museum say fifth.

Play “Topaz Relocation Center and Topaz Museum Delta Utah” from YouTube
“Topaz Relocation Center and Topaz Museum Delta Utah”, by Postcard Dan on YouTube. The player loads from YouTube when you press play.

Timeline

Three years at Topaz

Topaz from the water tower, March 14, 1943, with rows of barracks running to the desert
Topaz from the water tower, March 14, 1943, with rows of barracks running to the desert · Photo: Francis Stewart, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
  1. President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066. About 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from the West Coast; the Topaz Museum counts 125,284 sent to the ten camps.
  2. Construction begins on a mile-square camp in the Sevier Desert west of Delta. Some 214 incarcerees volunteer to arrive early and help build it.
  3. Topaz opens. Most of its people come from the Tanforan and Santa Anita assembly centers and the San Francisco Bay Area.
  4. The camp holds about 8,100 people (Topaz Museum); Wikipedia gives over 9,000 with staff, making Topaz the fifth-largest city in Utah.
  5. A sentry shoots and kills James Hatsuaki Wakasa, 63, while he walks his dog inside the fence. Incarcerees strike and hold a large funeral.
  6. The loyalty questionnaire divides the camp. People judged "disloyal" are sent to Tule Lake.
  7. Topaz closes. In all 11,212 people passed through it.
  8. The land is sold. Barracks go for $250 a half, and even the water pipes and utility poles are sold off.
  9. The Japanese American Citizens League places a monument at the northwest corner of the central area.
  10. Delta teacher Jane Beckwith founds the Topaz Museum Board.
  11. The site is designated a National Historic Landmark.
  12. The Topaz Museum opens in Delta, then reopens in 2017 with permanent exhibits. The museum board now owns 639 acres of the camp.

The camp was first called the Central Utah Relocation Center and briefly the Abraham Relocation Center; the name Topaz came from Topaz Mountain, which overlooks the site. Population figures differ by source, so we give both.

What's left

What you'll see

A low wall marks the foundation of the administration building, August 2015
A low wall marks the foundation of the administration building, August 2015 · Photo: mliu92 from San Mateo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

The memorial stands at the northwest corner of the central area, on 4500 North. Photos from August 2015 show a flagpole, the 1976 monument and a bronze plaque of 2007 marking the National Historic Landmark. From there the roads of the old camp run south and west in a grid you can still trace from the air.

The Topaz Museum says the original barbed-wire fence remains, its four strands sagging in places, and that outlines of barracks, rock gardens and paths are etched into the ground under the greasewood. Ditches mark where the water pipes were pulled out. Photos show the stone foundation of the administration building, the concrete coal chute of the hospital, a sewage pump house with a small memorial, and an open sewer manhole. Scraps of wood and metal lie everywhere; the museum warns of rusty nails and asks that nothing be taken. A few Topaz buildings still stand on farms nearby, moved there after the camp was sold. In a video posted August 2025, small signs mark where the hospital, the schools, the main gate, the guard tower, the fire station and numbered blocks stood.

The historic maps below run from 1885, when the site was open desert beside the Sevier River, to the 1953 sheet that marks "Topaz Camp (abandoned)" west of Abraham and the 1989 sheet that still draws the camp's street grid.

  • Memorial, flagpole and 2007 landmark plaque
  • Original barbed-wire fence
  • Street grid and barracks outlines
  • Administration building foundation
  • Hospital coal chute
  • Sewage pump house
  • Pipe trenches
USGS topographic map showing the street grid of the Topaz camp
USGS The National Map, topo. The camp's street grid, a square of blocks south of 4500 North, with canals to the east.
Aerial view of the Topaz camp site with its grid of roads and barracks foundations
Aerial imagery, same area. The road grid and the dark scars of barracks blocks are still plain on the desert.

Visiting

The museum and the site

A Topaz barracks building restored to its original layout behind the Topaz Museum in Delta, August 2015
A Topaz barracks building restored to its original layout behind the Topaz Museum in Delta, August 2015 · Photo: mliu92 from San Mateo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Start at the Topaz Museum, 55 West Main in Delta, (435) 864-2514. Its home page lists hours of 10:00 to 5:00, Monday through Saturday, year-round, closed New Year's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas (its page footer and the site rules list New Year's, Thanksgiving and Christmas). Admission is by donation. The museum has a camp barracks behind it, and it takes requests for guided tours of the site.

Then drive to the site, about 16 miles northwest. The museum asks you to enter 10750 West 4500 North, Delta, into your GPS rather than "Topaz." The rules posted by the museum: stay on existing roads, no off-road driving, leave artifacts, rocks and plants undisturbed, don't touch the historic fence, no metal detectors, digging, camping, fires, firearms, alcohol or smoking, only leashed service animals, and no drones. If the site is muddy, don't go in.

Historic maps

Topaz on USGS maps, 1885–1989

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Topaz, 1885
Sevier Desert sheet, 1885, 1:250,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Delta is the nearest town, with the museum and services. County roads lead northwest across farmland to 4500 North, which runs along the north edge of the camp. From Salt Lake City, take I-15 south to Nephi, then SR 132 and US 6 to Delta.

USGS topographic map from Delta northwest to the Topaz camp site, with routes drawn on it

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From downtown Delta15.0 miabout 43 min
  1. From downtown Delta, take Main Street (US 6/US 50) west.1.0 mi
  2. Turn right on 1000 West (CR 1948).1.5 mi
  3. Continue as West 1500 North (CR 1948).3.0 mi
  4. Turn right on 4000 West.3.0 mi
  5. Turn left on 4500 North (CR 1954) to the north edge of the camp. The memorial is a little farther west, at 10750 West.6.5 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • The routes end on 4500 North at the north edge of the camp. The museum's address for the memorial is 10750 West 4500 North.
  • The Topaz Museum's rules: drive and park only on existing roads, no off-roading, and do not enter when the site is muddy.
  • In a video posted August 2025 the creator says the road in front of the site still isn't paved, and drives the camp's bumpy, rutted roads; the fact sheet we used rates the roads 2WD.

Photos

Topaz in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Topaz?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

Nearby

Other sites near Topaz

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Utah index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. Wikipedia, "Topaz War Relocation Center", read October 29, 2026: Executive Order 9066, the opening and closing dates, Tanforan and Santa Anita, over 9,000 with staff, 11,212 in all, the camp names, the 34 residential blocks, the elevation of 4,580 feet, the 214 early volunteers, the first snow, James Wakasa, the loyalty questionnaire, the sale of the buildings, the 1976 JACL monument, the 2007 landmark, Jane Beckwith and the museum.
  2. ghosttowns.com, Topaz: fact sheet (county, 2WD roads, climate, remains) and history: the markers at the northwest corner, guard-tower posts, foundations, the fence line, the pipe trenches, buildings moved to nearby farms.
  3. Topaz Museum and its Visit Historic Site page, read October 29, 2026: 16 miles northwest of Delta, peak population 8,100, 11,212 processed, private ownership and protection, 639 acres, the sale prices of barracks, the fence, the outlines under the greasewood, the GPS address, the museum hours, address, phone and donation admission, 125,284 people removed to the ten camps.
  4. Postcard Dan, "Topaz Relocation Center and Topaz Museum Delta Utah", YouTube, posted August 8, 2025: the video on this page; the place signs on the site, the memorial, foundations, rusted pipe, the unpaved road in front of the site, the museum exhibits and the rebuilt recreation hall.
  5. Topaz Museum, "Historic Site Rules" (2023): roads only, artifacts, mud, fence, drones and the other rules.
  6. Commons photos of the site by mliu92 (August 11, 2015), Phil Konstantin (aerial, August 11, 2009) and Arthurrh; War Relocation Authority photos by Tom Parker and Francis Stewart (1942 and 1943), via the National Archives.
  7. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026.

Photo and map credits