A 1982 journalism assignment in Delta led to the Topaz Museum

The idea for the Topaz Museum began in journalism classes at Delta High in 1982. Teacher Jane Beckwith assigned her students to interview Delta residents who had worked at Topaz during World War II. According to the museum, the assignment started a community dialogue in Delta for the first time since the war.

People then began bringing Beckwith artifacts they had been keeping. The result was a trunk of objects that traveled to presentations about Topaz. In 1983, a conference at the University of Utah connected the Delta High students with Japanese Americans attending it. That same year, Beckwith founded the Topaz Museum Board.

The camp itself stood 16 miles northwest of Delta, on the lip of the Great Basin. It operated from September 11, 1942, to October 31, 1945. At its peak it held 8,100 people, and 11,212 people were processed through it while it was in operation. It was one of ten War Relocation Authority confinement sites, part of a system that removed 125,284 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. About two-thirds were American citizens.

The museum is located at 55 West Main in Delta. It debuted with a display of art created at Topaz. The permanent exhibits were installed in 2017.

The core exhibit starts earlier than the camp. It begins with the racist laws aimed at early Japanese immigrants, follows the path to mass incarceration and the impact of exile, and closes with an examination of the Constitutional violations the incarcerees endured. Hundreds of artifacts, photographs and oral histories carry that story, along with about 150 pieces of original artwork.

The museum recommends visiting it before going out to the camp site, which is privately owned and protected by the museum. The site has visitor rules: drive only on the roads, and do not remove artifacts. For GPS, the museum asks you to enter the address 11000 W 4500 N Rd rather than typing in "Topaz."

The museum also lays out an 18-stop driving or biking tour around Delta. It includes some of the remodeled barracks and hospital wings that were moved from Topaz into town, so parts of the camp's buildings can be seen without leaving Delta.