The Heart Mountain Relocation Center's living area housed more than 10,000 men, women, and children, making it the third largest community in Wyoming. It contained 30 blocks of barracks and related buildings modeled on temporary military camp housing. Construction began in June 1942 with more than 2,500 workers, many from nearby communities, and brought a major boost to the regional economy. Using thirteen million board feet of number 3 grade green pine and spruce lumber shipped by rail, workers erected barracks housing, mess halls, latrines, administrative buildings, and hospital buildings in sixty-two days at a 1942 cost of $5.5 million dollars. The quality of construction was poor, with shrinking green lumber leaving gaps of up to one-half inch, outer walls covered with black tar paper and lath, and little protection against Wyoming winters. Each 120-foot-by-20-foot barracks was divided into six rooms of varying sizes, with the largest assigned to families of six or more. Rooms had no real privacy and were furnished only with a coal-burning pot-bellied stove, a single light fixture, army-style cots with mattresses, and two wool blankets per internee, while blankets hung on ropes often served as partitions and furniture was made from scrap lumber. In late December 1942 and early January 1943, Celotex insulation wallboard finally arrived for internees to install ceilings and walls. Each block included 24 barracks, shower and lavatory buildings, laundry tubs, mess halls, and recreation halls, and held about 550 persons. Internees had to leave their rooms for toilets, showers, and meals, and the communal latrines, shower facilities, and mess halls eroded personal privacy and family structure. Food came through Army Quartermaster stations under wartime rationing, and within the living area were worship barracks, schools, and later a community enterprise store, radio shop, dry cleaners, two movie theaters, a library, and eventually a U.S.O. lounge for visiting Nisei servicemen. Although it could appear to be a normal community, it was defined by surrounding barbed wire, guard towers, and the lack of personal freedom and privacy for the internees.