Far From Home: The Internee Experience at Fort Missoula
On Saturday, May 31st, 2025, after eight long years of planning, fundraising, and construction the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula opened the doors to, “Far From Home: The Internee Experience at Fort Missoula.”
Entering the building is a sensory experience like none other on our grounds. Museum visitors are invited to sit on a bunk, flip through a ledger, and dig in a trunk all while Alfredo Cipaloto’s “O Sole a Mio” tickles your ears. The exhibit is an opportunity for visitors to connect with ten individual men wrongfully imprisoned at Fort Missoula. Each of them displaced from their regular lives facing intense uncertainty-some stayed weeks, others years. Glimpses into how internees survived and created meaningful experiences while incarcerated are scattered throughout the space-with readable postcards, touchable boats and musical instruments. Hands-on reproductions of items we know internees used, tell stories and help people imagine what it would have been like to live as an internee. The new exhibit complements our existing gallery exhibit, which houses a more comprehensive history of internees at Fort Missoula.
“These men found ways to give their time here at Fort Missoula meaning and some even became significant members of our Missoula community after their release. We want visitors to not only thoughtfully consider the questions about their lived experience posed in the space but ask themselves how they would feel being held indefinitely in a Department of Justice or War Relocation Authority camp so they can truly connect with the lives of these men in a brand-new way, “ Emma Selfors, Curator of Collections, said.
Project partners include a&e Design, Structure West, and Historical Research Associates (HRA). Selfors said, “Their (HRA)year of outreach to descendants and partner groups and care in choosing stories and artifacts really lets the stories of these incarcerated men shine through.”
The building itself is one of two original Alien Detention Center Barracks that were used at Fort Missoula, from 1941-1944, and housed roughly 1200 Italian Nationals and over 1100 Japanese Issei men. “The completion of this exhibit comes after years of effort and planning. Fort Missoula is very unique and is one of the most intact confinement sites in the nation. Creating a space where the public can immerse themselves in an original barracks building is a truly powerful experience and we can’t wait to share these stories. It makes it even more special that we opened in May, which is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. We are incredibly thankful to the Missoula community as well as volunteers, donors and grant organizations who made this project possible” Matt Lautzenheiser, Executive Director at the Historical Museum, said.
Phase II of the project is already underway and involves the construction of a matching barrack building that will help visitors better understand the layout of the camp. This building will be identical to the restored barrack on the outside with a state-of-the-art museum collections storage facility on the inside. The second building is not designed as a public space, instead it will help the museum manage a collection of over 50,000 objects. We anticipate phase II being complete in the fall of 2025.
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