GRANADA, Colo. — Most days, the only sounds in this desolate place in the southeastern part of the state are the skitter of rattlesnakes and the rustle of sagebrush in the wind.

But on Saturday a car stopped in the sand, and out stepped Bob Fuchigami, 85, who had come to tell the story of his imprisonment, 73 years before, at an internment camp here that came to be known as Amache.

In 1942, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, roughly 120,000 people of Japanese descent were evicted from their homes and sent to live in camps around the country. About two-thirds of them were American citizens. At the time, the federal government called the move necessary to protect the West Coast from sabotage.

“It was a mile square full of barracks,” Mr. Fuchigami said as he whacked through a thicket of sage in search of the remains of his hut, 7G. “They shouldn’t have been here,” he said of the people who lived inside. “It was just one colossal mistake.”