Originally a remote highway work camp (F-38) of the Civilian Conservation Corps it became Federal Prison Camp No. 11 in 1935, run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. During World War II in 1943, it was converted to house more than 250 interned Japanese men, most of whom were longtime U.S. residents, but not citizens, branded enemy aliens. Because the camp was so remote in the western Bitterroot Mountains, fences and guard towers were It was run by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) of the Department of Justice.