Camp Gruber was located in the Northeastern Oklahoma. This Cherokee land was taken to create an internment camp for POW’s and Americans of Japanese descent during World War II. Here’s what happened.
At the start of WWII, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had already “acquired” nearly thirty thousand acres of farmland in eastern Oklahoma. That included 27,322.23 acres that were held in trust, under federal stewardship. The Cookson Hills Project was designed to provide an infantry training center there.
More land was acquired through condemnation. The U.S. government condemned a fifty square mile area of Cherokee land. This is land that had been distributed to Cherokee individuals by the Dawes Commission during the U.S. governments efforts to remove power from the tribal leaders. Even though the land “belonged to” an individual, if the person was more than 1/2 degree Indian blood the government held the land “in trust”. According to court documents, in all, the Army took 32,000 acres from the Cherokee people. The Resettlement Administration relocated farmers who had owned or worked the property.
The U.S. government took the land from 45 Cherokee families and only gave them 45 days to get out. They lost crops, animals, schools, cemetarys, and friends. They had no way to move other than with horses and only given a token payment of $25 per family for expenses.
On June 3, 1947, Camp Gruber was deactivated and soon became surplus property, with 63,920 acres placed under the authority of the War Assets Administration. The federal government retained control and the Cherokee families were not allowed to repurchase their lands.
