Fodor's Expert Review Heart Mountain Interpretive Center

From 1942 through 1945, nearly 14,000 Japanese Americans were relocated to this hastily constructed incarceration center—one of 10 located throughout the country—at the foot of Heart Mountain, about 13 miles north of Cody. Evicted from their West Coast homes through an executive order issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the residents lived in small, tightly spaced barracks. In 2011, a poignant museum opened on the long-abandoned site. At the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center, you can learn about this shameful episode of U.S. history by watching an excellent short movie and touring both permanent and rotating exhibits that use photographs, letters, news clippings, and other artifacts to bring to life the powerful and often inspiring stories of Heart Mountain's inhabitants, who persevered in the face of anti-Asian prejudices and unjust conditions.