On February 18, thirteen transfers from Gila River, Arizona, were brought to Moab, and six days later, ten more arrived from Manzanar.
150 military police guarded the camp, and director Raymond Best and head of security Francis Frederick presided over administration. Having closed just fifteen months prior, all 18 military-style structures of the CCC camp were in good condition, and the site was converted to its new use with minimal renovation. On January 11, 1943, the sixteen men who had initiated the two-day protests were transferred to Moab from the town jails where they were booked (without charges or access to hearings) after the riot. The Moab Isolation Center for "noncompliant" Japanese Americans was created in response to growing resistance to WRA policies within the camps a December 1942 clash between guards and inmates known as the " Manzanar Riot," in which two were killed and ten injured, was the final push. In 1943, a former Civilian Conservation Corps camp outside Moab was used to confine Japanese American internees labeled "troublemakers" by authorities in the War Relocation Authority, the government body responsible for overseeing the wartime incarceration program. military deemed the bridge over the Colorado River at Moab important enough to place it under guard as late as World War II. Soon Moab's origins as one of the few natural crossings of the Colorado River were forgotten. Moab farmers and merchants had to adapt from trading with passing travelers to shipping their goods to distant markets. These changes shifted the trade routes away from Moab. Later, other places to cross the Colorado were constructed, such as Lee's Ferry, Navajo Bridge and Boulder Dam. The rail line did not pass through Moab, instead passing through the towns of Thompson Springs and Cisco, 40 miles (64 km) to the north. In 1883 the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad main line was constructed across eastern Utah.
Moab was incorporated as a town on December 20, 1902. A new group of settlers from Rich County, led by Randolph Hockaday Stewart, established a permanent settlement in 1878 under the direction of Brigham Young. After this last attack, the fort was abandoned. There were repeated Indian attacks, including one on September 23, 1855, in which James Hunt, companion to Peter Stubbs, was shot and killed by a Native American. Latter-day Saint settlers attempted to establish a trading fort at the river crossing called the Elk Mountain Mission in April 1855 to trade with travellers attempting to cross the river. Both attempts failed.ĭuring the period between 1829 and the early 1850s, the area around what is now Moab served as the Colorado River crossing along the Old Spanish Trail. : 50 Another effort attempted to change the name to "Uvadalia". One petition in 1890 had 59 signatures and requested a name change to "Vina". Some of the area's early residents attempted to change the city's name, because in the Christian Bible, Moabites are demeaned as incestuous and idolatrous (but note, Ruth was a Moabitess). : 16 However, others believe the name has Paiute origins, referring to the word moapa, meaning "mosquito". Some historians believe the city in Utah came to use this name because of William Andrew Peirce, the first postmaster, believing that the biblical Moab and this part of Utah were both "the far country". The Biblical name Moab refers to an area of land located on the eastern side of the Jordan River.