Scenic 395 - The Official Guide 2026

30 2026 Scenic 395 Independence Welcome to home away from home Where mountains meet comfort Your base camp for Eastern Sierra Pet friendly rooms AC/kettle/fridge/ microwave in every room Thru-Hiker resupply services Seasonal breakfast Exceptional hospitality 515 South Edwards St. Independence, CA 93513 Mt. Williamson Motel and Base Camp 760-878-2121 760-878-5066 ( text only) @mtwilliamsonmotel Info@mtwilliamsonmotel.com www.mtwilliamsonmotel.com Book direct for best rates! Manzanar stands on Highway 395 as an important lesson to this day By Andrew L. Bergman The Daily Independent Manzanar National Historic Site sits along the 395 as an important reminder of one of the United States’ greatest failures. DuringWorldWar II, Manaznar was one of sev- eral internment camps for Japanese-Americans where roughly 120,000 people, about 2/3 of which were American citizens, were forcibly relo- cated and incarcerated. Over 100,000 people were forced to abandon their homes, their properties, and their business- es to be isolated in the wilder- ness. This was due to a pre- vailing belief that immigrants who left their home nation, or rather their children and grandchildren in many cases, could still be loyal to it against the U.S. in the war. This attitude was not helped by popular media person- alities, like cartoonist The- odor “Dr. Seuss” Giesel, a forward-thinking man who would draw comics support- ing that Black workers be hired in “white” factories, but then portrayed the Jap- anese-Americans as spies and saboteurs waiting for the command to strike. He would depict white Americans as needing to be cured of the mental disease of racial prej- udice, then draw the Japanese with the racist stereotype of being slant-eyed, bucktoothed goblins. Manzanar remains an im- portant lesson to Americans. We took the same terrible first steps that Nazi Germa- ny did, turning against our fellow citizens and declaring them “outsiders” needing to be removed for our safety and prosperity. While the U.S. wasn’t motivated by the same violent insanity that ultimate- ly led to the Holocaust, we still harmed a substantial number of innocent people through fear and bigotry. It is easy to find Manzanar — you drive the 395 between Independence and Lone Pine. It is a dusty ghost town in the middle of nowhere, along the highway, where 10,000 people lived in roughly a square-mile facility, surrounded by barbed wire and eight guard towers. There were 36 blocks, each divided into 14 residential barracks, with a mess hall opposite a recreation hall, and other assorted facilities like laundries and toilets. Ninety percent of Manzanar’s inmates came from the Los Angeles area. In their rush to detain people as quickly as possible, Man- zanar was unfinished when it opened. Two blocks were in- complete, producing crowding in the barracks, where a dozen people would share a 20-by- 25-foot room. Over a dozen mess halls lacked plumbing and kitchen gear, resulting in half-hour waits for 300 people in a line. Sewers were incomplete, water was con- taminated, and improvements fell to the inmates, who would partition larger rooms into smaller ones, and planted gardens and landscaped their prison to improve morale and keep the dust down. The camp was closed in 1945; the inmates were given $25 and a bus ticket to any destination. Some had to be forcibly removed since they lost everything they owned before internment and had put down roots in their forced community. Aside from the cemetery, sentry shacks, and high school auditorium, the rest of Manzanar was torn down in an attempt to bury and forget the camp. In 1969, a non-profit group known as the Manzanar Committee started the annual Man- zanar Pilgrimage to keep the memory alive, eventually leading to its restoration and Manzanar National Historic Site serves as a reminder of a dark chapter that it may never be repeated. Photo by Andrew L. Bergman, The Daily Independent See Manzanar on Page 32