Heart Mountain Site
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Heart Mountain press releases provide updates on upcoming events, new exhibits, and news from the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and Interpretive Center; for high-resolution archival and contemporary images, visit the Media Kit or contact info@heartmountain.org, and for news from the Japanese American Confinement Sites Consortium (JACSC), click here—recent and past press releases are available below.
December 4, 2025
Six Powell High School students concluded their work at Heart Mountain Wednesday as part of the Democracy in Dialogue program by the Smithsonian Institution. Each Wednesday since October 1, students Aubrey Bear (junior), Riley Douglas (junior), Mackenzie Legler (junior), Bryson Weddell (senior), Kaden Wolff (junior), and Sawyer Wormald (junior) explored their community and learned how […]
November 19, 2025
Over the past two months, the historic hospital at the Heart Mountain National Historic Landmark has experienced four separate incidents of vandalism. The federally owned buildings were most recently damaged late last Thursday night, when intruders broke a window and tore away protective plywood from three doors, causing harm to the original historic door frames. […]
November 19, 2025
Thanks to a $158,622 grant from The Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation, the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation (HMWF) will lead Educators in Exchange: Bridging US-Japan Education on Japanese American Incarceration. In fall 2026, this program will help bring one group of university students and a separate group of university professors and museum professionals from […]
November 19, 2025
Dr. Takashi Hoshizaki, a former Heart Mountain incarceree who recently turned 100 years old, and Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation Board Chair Shirley Ann Higuchi have received commendations from the Japanese government for their work promoting stronger U.S.-Japan ties. Hoshizaki was named the recipient of the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun, Silver Rays, for his […]
October 22, 2025
Effectively immediately, all federal employees will enjoy free admission to the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center for the duration of the government shutdown. Free admission also applies to family members of federal employees living in the same household. The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation wants to express its solidarity with the federal employees who work in the […]
October 22, 2025
Willie Ito, who was incarcerated as a child at the Topaz, Utah, incarceration site for Japanese Americans during World War II, received a lifetime achievement award for his career in animation from the SPARK ANIMATION festival in Vancouver, British Columbia, last month. After returning to California after World War II, Ito began an animation career […]
October 3, 2025
Heart Mountain’s restored root cellar will be the focus of a $338,883 grant from the National Park Service’s Japanese American Confinement Sites (JACS) program. The grant will support the development and installation of a permanent exhibit inside the massive root cellar that was used to hold the produce grown on the camp’s farm by incarcerated […]
September 30, 2025
Ann Burroughs, president and CEO of the Japanese American National Museum and a Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation board member, will receive the Hon. Annice M. Wagner Pioneer Award from the Bar Association of the District of Columbia (BADC) during its annual banquet Saturday, December 6 in Washington, DC. The BADC, founded at the historic National […]
September 17, 2025
The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation (HMWF) has received a $776,775 grant from the National Park Service for Exiled to the Rockies: Japanese American Incarceration During World War II, a program that will roll out nationwide educational programming in partnership with other Japanese American confinement site organizations in the Rocky Mountain region. Heart Mountain was among the first recipients of […]
September 12, 2025
A $25,000 grant from the Wyoming Semiquincentennial Planning Task Force will enable the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation to bring Defining Courage, an immersive live event about Japanese American soldiers during World War II, to the Heart Mountain Pilgrimage next July. Created by Los Angeles newscaster David Ono, Defining Courage tells the story of the Japanese American soldiers who served in […]
July 30, 2025
The premiere of an animated film, a nationally honored presentation, a tribute to the memory of Senator Alan Simpson and a reading of the names of the 148 people who died while incarcerated at Heart Mountain were among the highlights of the Heart Mountain Pilgrimage between July 24 and 26. Hello Maggie!, an animated film adapted from a […]
July 22, 2025
New films and presentations about books and digital programming marking the 80th anniversary of the closing of Japanese American incarceration sites will be featured at the Heart Mountain Pilgrimage, which runs from Thursday, July 24, through Saturday, July 26. The Pilgrimage opens Thursday, July 24, with tours of the interpretive center and other facilities at the […]
