November 16, 2020

Admission to Heart Mountain Interpretive Center will be free on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 28. However, in recognition of ongoing coronavirus safety concerns, guests must schedule their visit in advance.

Offering free admission after Thanksgiving is a longstanding tradition, said Heart Mountain Executive Director Dakota Russell. “We always look forward to our local supporters bringing their family and friends in town for the holiday,” Russell said. 

Rather than canceling the event due to COVID-19 this year, Heart Mountain is requesting that guests make an appointment to visit ahead of time. Reservations will prevent overcrowding and allow guests to practice appropriate social distancing. Visitors are also required to wear a mask while inside the center.

Heart Mountain Interpretive Center is currently open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 am to 4 pm for groups of no more than 16 people. The center will be closed Thanksgiving Day, the entire week of December 20-26, and on New Year’s Day. Reservations for the Family Free Day event can be made at book.heartmountain.org/appointment, by emailing info@heartmountain.org, or by calling (307) 754-8000.

We're on a quest to find all the surviving Heart Mountain barracks in the Bighorn Basin, and we need your help! When the government closed that camp in 1945, they sold many of the buildings to locals and newly arrived homesteaders. These barracks are still in use today, as barns, shops, and even houses. The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and the Park County Historic Preservation Commission are holding this online workshop to train volunteers on how to identify and document these structures.

EVENT TIMING: Sunday, November 1, 3:00pm

If you have a building you believe is from Heart Mountain, reach out to us at info@heartmountain.org to have our volunteers pay you a visit.

Setsuko's Secret: Heart Mountain and the Legacy of the Japanese American Incarceration

Author Shirley Ann Higuchi, chair of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, uncovers her family's past and embarks on a transformational journey as she learns about the Japanese American incarceration during World War II and what happened to her family and those of other former incarcerees.

As children, Shirley Ann Higuchi and her brothers knew Heart Mountain only as the place their parents met, imagining it as a great Stardust Ballroom in rural Wyoming. As they grew older, they would come to recognize the name as a source of great sadness and shame for their older family members, part of the generation of Japanese Americans forced into the hastily built concentration camp in the aftermath of Executive Order 9066.

Only after a serious cancer diagnosis did Shirley's mother, Setsuko, share her vision for a museum at the site of the former camp, where she had been donating funds and volunteering in secret for many years. After Setsuko's death, Shirley skeptically accepted an invitation to visit the site, a journey that would forever change her life and introduce her to a part of her mother she never knew.

Navigating the complicated terrain of the Japanese American experience, Shirley patched together Setsuko's story and came to understand the forces and generational trauma that shaped her own life. Moving seamlessly between family and communal history, Setsuko's Secret offers a clear window into the "camp life" that was rarely revealed to the children of the incarcerated. This volume powerfully insists that we reckon with the pain in our collective American past.

Sign up for Setsuko's Secret Book Club

Buy the book from your favorite bookstore and read it...take a photo of yourself with your book and send it to us (we will ask for your permission to post on our social media). You'll receive a signed book plate and registration to join the virtual book meeting with Shirley on January 2, 2021 (Setsuko's birthday).

Attend a virtual book event

Check out the Setsuko's Secret website for more details.

Setsuko's Secret Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1if20d_ll8

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Praise for Setsuko's Secret:

"As a former incarceree of Heart Mountain, reading this was tremendously gratifying. In this deeply researched and compellingly written history, Higuchi captures the tragedy and triumph of the Japanese American experience and incarceration."

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Norman Mineta, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce and Transportation

"Only Shirley Ann Higuchi could tell so powerfully a story so needed to be told. This is the culmination of her vision and mission--to honestly share the deep passion of a proud family heritage forged in the saddest of times."

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Alan Simpson, former U.S. Senator, Wyoming

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Purchase Setsuko's Secret:

Heart Mountain Shop

Amazon

August 13, 2020

The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as part of the CARES Act legislation passed to help relieve the financial strain of the COVID-19 pandemic. The $92,852 grant will help the Foundation to retain staff at Heart Mountain Interpretive Center and to expand its online presence through the digitization of artifacts and the development of new online programs.

NEH CARES grants are intended to support essential operations at cultural institutions across all 50 states. The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation will use the grant to digitize documents and artifacts from the archives and to develop new online programs, including digital field trips for schools that cannot travel to the museum and additional online content for general audiences. These new projects will help the Foundation to retain its staff at Heart Mountain Interpretive Center during the ongoing pandemic.

Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation executive director Dakota Russell said the award will replace lost revenues from the downturn in visitation to the center, and may even provide new opportunities. “Many small museums like ours are in danger right now,” Russell said. “This funding will be critical to us in keeping the doors open. Beyond that, though, I think it presents us with a chance to expand our online presence and reach new audiences nationwide.”

When the interpretive center closed for two months this spring, Russell and the staff quickly pivoted to producing online programs about the history of the camp. This grant will allow them to continue and expand that effort. Programs will be posted to the Foundation’s website, where past programs can also be viewed. New digital resources for educators will be posted to the website this fall.

Health & Safety Protocols: The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation takes the safety of our members and visitors seriously. To that end, the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center will follow all the orders and recommendations made by state and local officials. We have instituted aggressive new cleaning procedures and changed some of the ways we operate to minimize the risk.

PLEASE WEAR A MASK

Park County officials have issued a mask mandate for our area of the state. In accordance with this, all visitors must wear face masks and observe social distancing measures while in the interpretive center, for the health and safety of themselves and others. Masks are available for use, upon request.

Thank you for your patience and support as we navigate these uncertain times. If you have questions, please reach out to us. If you would like to support our work during this difficult period, please consider becoming a member or making a donation or a purchase from our online store.