The War Years were troubled times for folks of Japanese descent in the Yakima Valley.

They were times of blocked phone lines and frozen bank assets. Men and women who had farmed the Valley for decades were sent to local prisons. The valedictorian of the 1942 Wapato High School graduating class could not attend his commencement because of a federal curfew.

Then there was Executive Order 9066, President Franklin Roosevelt's Feb. 19, 1942, decision to ship 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry -- even those who were American citizens -- from the West Coast to 10 internment camps throughout the American West.

"On June 4 and 5, 1,061 persons of Japanese ancestry were evacuated from the Yakima Valley," Lon Inaba said during a January presentation for the Downtown Yakima Rotary Club. They walked away from 9,000 acres of crops with only what they could carry.

The first Japanese settlers came to the Yakima Valley in the 1890s, lured by work in coal mines, railroads and lumber mills. Eventually, they began farming and opening businesses.

Most lived in Wapato. In 1929, they built a Buddhist temple and a gathering hall for Japanese language classes and sumo tournaments. They also formed baseball teams and associations that encouraged patriotism and community involvement, said Inaba, a third-generation farmer from Harrah.

But World War II stopped the growth.

About 925 people of Japanese ancestry lived in Wapato at the time of Pearl Harbor.

Within minutes of the news of the attack in Hawaii, federal agents blocked the phone lines of Japanese-born residents in Wapato and froze their bank accounts, according to the book "The Burning Horse: The Japanese-American Experience in the Yakima Valley 1920-1942," by Thomas Heuterman. That included both the Issei, the Japanese immigrants, and the Nisei, their children.

Many were held at the Wapato and Yakima County jails.

On Jan. 23, 1942, the language school burned down. Investigators did not find a cause, Heuterman wrote in the 1996 book.

A curfew prevented Sheane Inaba, Lon Inaba's uncle, from attending his 1942 Wapato High School commencement. He was the valedictorian.

The closest internment camp to Yakima was the Minidoka Relocation Center in southern Idaho. But the federal government had proposed a temporary assembly center southwest of Toppenish, on the Golding hop farm owned by John I. Haas Inc., according to the Yakima Daily Republic archives.

Throughout April and early May 1942, the hop farm's existing farm labor camp was being prepared to house the internees. The Army leased 640 existing cabins at the ranch and built an additional 100 to 120. These facilities were to be inside a fenced area with 60 to 100 soldiers to guard the facility. Local residents were ordered to keep away.

But the center never opened. On May 16, the newspaper reported the federal government decided a similar camp in Puyallup would be big enough.

Most Yakima Valley internees were sent to Portland before traveling to Hart Mountain, Wyo., Inaba said. After the war, most of the them moved to southeastern Oregon, where attitudes were friendlier, Inaba said. The few that returned to the Valley were greeted by signs that read "No Jap Trade Wanted."

Still, many white and Yakama friends watched over property, including the Buddhist temple, which still stands at 212 Second St., and welcomed them home.

"With their help and encouragement, many Japanese families were able to get off to a new start," Inaba said.

Today, third-generation Japanese, or Sansei, lead the Yakima Valley Japanese American Community and tend to the graves of their parents and grandparents, Inaba said.