Jerome Relocation Center
United States. Army. Western Defense Command and Fourth Army. Final Report, Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast, 1942. Washington 1943, p. 258
The Farm Security Administration facilitated the acquisition of 10,000 acres of tax-delinquent land in Arkansas’ Chicot and Drew Counties for the Jerome Relocation Center, just twenty-seven miles north of Rohwer and 18 miles south of McGehee. Rohwer and Jerome were the only two “relocation” centers to be located in a southern state. Jerome, which had a maximum population of 8,461 residents, had a significant population of prisoners from Hawaii. Jerome was laid out with thirty-six blocks of housing on a U.S. military standard plot plan. Construction began on July 15, 1942 and opened on October 6, 1942. Its work programs were designed to rehabilitate land through clearing vegetation and infrastructure improvements as originally envisioned by the Farm Security Administration. The center’s agricultural production produced 85 percent of the vegetables needed to feed their population. Jerome Relocation Center was operative for a relatively short time, closing on June 30, 1944.