# @sachistorymuseum on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DU9IzxuEn11
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/56836395-sachistorymuseum-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/bc776810b1.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-02-19T21:53:50.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Sacramento History Museum (@sachistorymuseum) — https://gondola.cc/sachistorymuseum

## Caption

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the internment of roughly 120,000 of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident immigrants from Japan during the Second World War. Over a dozen temporary detention camps, also known as an assembly centers, were constructed at warehouses, fairgrounds, and racetracks. This became the first phase of mass incarceration for Japanese American citizens living in California until permanent larger camps were constructed. 

The Sacramento Assembly Center, also known as Walerga, held a total of 4,770 individuals over its 52-day occupancy from May 6th until June 26th. By the end of May, Sacramento’s entire Japanese population (around 3,500 people) were reported to have been incarcerated at this detention center. 

After June 26th, those detained were relocated to a larger internment camp at Tule Lake in Modoc County. The Sacramento Assembly Center was 15 miles north of Downtown Sacramento and was the size of 11 square blocks with 225 buildings. Once the assembly center was closed, it was turned over to the Army Signal Corps and was renamed Camp Kohler. 

Today, the Foothill Farms subdivision in North Highlands covers much of the area that was once the assembly center. A plaque, California Historical Landmark no. 934, at Walerga Park at the northwest corner of College Oak Drive and Palm Avenue, was dedicated in February 1987 at the location of the temporary detention center.

Photograph of the Sacramento Assembly Center on May 20, 1942 by Dorothea Lange, courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.

#TodayInHistory #OnThisDay #sacramento #sacramentohistory #sachistorymuseum

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sacramentohistory, sacramento, todayinhistory, onthisday, sachistorymuseum

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