Grant Will Fund Restoration Of Barracks At Fort Missoula Museum
A grant worth over a half million dollars will help a Missoula museum share the history of a local detention center where over a thousand Japanese men were held and subjected to loyalty hearings following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The Fort Missoula Alien Detention Center also held another 1,200 non-military Italian men.
Museum executive director Matt Lautzenheiser says historians have an obligation to discuss the darker chapters of the nation’s history.
“By providing an example of something in the past like the incarceration of Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals like we had here at Fort Missoula we’re providing an example of a mistake we made in the past, but a mistake that we can learn from so that as we consider contemporary issues we have more of a perspective to do that.” Lautzenheiser says.
The National Park Service grant will fund restoration and reconstruction of two original barracks at the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula.
The Historical Museum at Fort Missoula needs to raise another $140,000 for the restoration project.
Officials hope construction can begin during the summer or fall of 2022.
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