21 miles away
La Paz
A gold rush town on the Colorado River, founded in 1862 and long abandoned before La Paz County took its name.
Poston War Relocation Center
The largest by area of the ten War Relocation Authority camps of the Second World War, holding over 17,000 people at its peak.
- Rank in Arizona
- #121of 727 ranked
- Overall score
- Score 49.9 out of 100medium confidence
- Category
- Historic Site
The Poston War Relocation Center was the largest by area of the ten camps operated by the War Relocation Authority during the Second World War, in what was then Yuma County and is now La Paz County. It comprised three camps set three miles apart in a chain running north to south, which internees named Roasten, Toastin and Dustin; the Colorado River lay about three miles to the west, outside the perimeter. Poston was built on the Colorado River Indian Reservation over the objections of the Tribal Council, which refused to take part in doing to others what had been done to their tribe; Army commanders and Bureau of Indian Affairs officials overruled it. Its combined peak population exceeded 17,000, mostly people from Southern California, making it at the time the third-largest settlement in Arizona. It was built by Del Webb and named after Charles Debrille Poston, the government engineer who established the Colorado River Reservation in 1865. A single fence surrounded all three camps, and the site was thought remote enough that guard towers were unnecessary. Alexander H. Leighton, a social analyst at the camp, published his findings in 1945 as The Governing of Men.
Where it is
Poston War Relocation Center is a historic site near Blythe, in La Paz County. It is one of the historic sites in this database, and appears in the statewide ranking of Arizona attractions.
How this ranking was reached
No official visitor count is published for Poston War Relocation Center, so its score rests on public interest and tourism significance, and is capped below the level a measured attraction can reach. That is why the medium confidence above is not higher. The weighting is explained in full on the methodology page, and every axis is broken out under Facts and sources at the foot of this page.
Note on the data: No official visitor count is published for this attraction.
Sources
- Public interest: Wikimedia pageviews (en.wikipedia, human traffic), 2024
- Coordinates and designations: Wikidata(opens in a new tab)
- County: U.S. Census geography via FCC Area API, resolved from coordinates
Record last verified 2026-08-12.
More photographs
sonora ortiz, CC BY-SA 4.0 · licence(opens in a new tab) · source(opens in a new tab) 
Steven Jarrett Bernstein, CC BY-SA 3.0 · licence(opens in a new tab) · source(opens in a new tab)
Nearby attractions
22 miles away
Bouse Fisherman
A pre-Columbian desert geoglyph near Quartzsite depicting a fisherman, near a Native American lookout and stagecoach ruins.
23 miles away
Buckskin Mountain State Park
A public recreation area on the Colorado River near Parker, in two developed areas below the Buckskin Mountains.
24 miles away
Hi Jolly Monument
A Quartzsite grave marker for Hi Jolly, the Syrian-born camel driver brought to America in 1856 for the army's camel experiment.25 miles away
Quartzsite Historical Society
Quartzsite Historical Society, in La Paz County, Arizona, occupies the site of an 1866 adobe stage station on the California–Arizona line.27 miles away
Tyson Wash grinding holes and petroglyphs
Tyson Wash grinding holes and petroglyphs, near Quartzsite, Arizona, preserves pre-Columbian petroglyphs on both sides of the wash.
Facts and sources
Place
- Category
- Historic Site
- Destination
- Blythe
- County
- La Paz County
- State
- Arizona
Visitation
- Annual visits
- Not published
Ranking
- Overall score
- 49.9 / 100
- Visitation score
- No published count
- Popularity score
- 40.3
- Significance score
- 58.0
- Confidence
- medium
Visiting
- Coordinates
- 33.9875, -114.4011
- Last verified
- 2026-08-12