DELTA, Utah — It’s official! The grand opening for the Topaz Museum will be on July 7-8.
Anyone celebrating the event will stay at the Salt Lake City Sheraton with an evening banquet on Friday and travel to Delta, Utah by bus on Saturday morning. A full day of activities is being planned, including a commemorative program, tours of the Topaz site, and, of course, visits to the newly installed exhibits at the Topaz Museum.
More information about registration will be sent out in a newsletter and on the Topaz Museum website. People will be able to register online or from the newsletter.
The museum exhibits recount the toll and complex history that “prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of leadership” wreaked on 11,000 of the 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry during World War II who were in Topaz.
Historical photographs, text, and artifacts with a recreated barrack and a restored recreation hall will give visitors a glimpse of the horrific series of events that caused hardship and misery for those caught in the crossfire of political expediency and prejudice.
The Topaz Museum Board received a grant from the National Park Service Japanese American Confinement Sites program to manufacture and install the exhibits. West Office Exhibition Design of Oakland has been working on the final exhibit since 1994.
The museum building was finished in 2014 and for two years the gallery housed an art show, “When Words Weren’t Enough,” which displayed artwork all painted at Topaz.
Installation of the exhibits and artifacts should be completed in April. For more information, see the museum’s Facebook page or website (www.topazmuseum.org). Museum hours are from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. except for Sunday. For more information, call (435) 864-2514.