Lost towns: A look at the area that became home to the Hanford Manhattan Project

HANFORD, Wash. — The towns of Hanford and White Bluffs were growing towns until 1943 when residents were told to leave to make way for the Manhattan Project.

What was life like for the residents who lived there?

“When Euro-Americans started arriving in what was to become known as the Priest Rapids Valley, they found a landscape basically unchanged for thousands of years,” wrote David Harvey, in the first chapter of the book “Nowhere to Remember,” edited by Robert Bauman and Robert Franklin. “Pleistocene floods of massive extent shaped much of the Mid-Columbia Plateau, the last of which occurred approximately 12,000 years ago.”

The first residents in the area were the ancestors of the Wanapum people. They fished and had villages along the Columbia River from the area around Wanapum Dam to Richland.

“When non-Indian settlement of the Mid-Columbia began, the Wanapum were living mainly at Priest Rapids, and utilized seasonal fishing and gathering camps at White Bluffs, Horn Rapids (on the Yakima River) and as far south as Columbia Point in Richland,” Harvey wrote.

The members of the Lewis and Clark expedition were some of the first European Americans to explore the area.

“In 1811, explorer David Thompson of the North West Company became the first non-Indian to travel the entire length of the Columbia River, passing through the future town sites of White Bluffs, Hanford and Richland on his way to the mouth of the Columbia River,” Harvey wrote. “The fur companies and other explorers soon followed as they sought trade goods from the region’s tribes. The fur companies established trading posts and routes across the interior, which attracted trappers, military units and miners to the Mid-Columbia.”

When gold was discovered in British Columbia and in the upper Columbia River, miners headed north. Along with them were farmers, ranchers and merchants who supplied the needs of the miners.

“A ferry started operating at White Bluffs in 1858 to assist those heading to the mines,” said the description in the PNNL’s application to the National Register of Historic Places. “White Bluffs quickly became an important point for the transfer of goods (headed to the interior gold fields), and one of the first permanent non-Indian settlements in the Priest Rapids Valley. Pack trains heading north to supply the mining camps used the ferry, and by the late 1850s, White Bluffs became the furthest upriver stopping point for steamboats.”

In the early days of settlers to the area, livestock roamed the area. But those herds were greatly affected in 1880s during several hard winters.

“While the open range lasted into the early 20th century, the devastating winters of the 1880s decimated livestock herds to such an extent that they never fully recovered,” Harvey wrote. “Some ranchers turned to cultivating small family farms. The majority of the new settlers were interested in farming, and their arrival hastened the transition of the regional economy from stock raising to agriculture. The early 20th century featured a widespread growth of agriculture, with an increasing dependence on irrigation. The arrival of irrigation led to rapid population increase in the Priest Rapids Valley. By 1910, Hanford had a population of approximately 370, while White Bluffs had approximately 325.”

That same year, the Priest Rapids Valley had over 1,000 residents.

In 1920, the Hanford Irrigation and Power Company was formed.

“(It) was organized in Seattle for the purpose of reclaiming 32,000 acres of arid land near White Bluffs and Hanford, including the planned construction of a pumping plant upriver at Coyote Rapids and a major irrigation canal to deliver water to Hanford and White Bluffs farms,” Harvey wrote. “This created a frenzy of construction of residences and farms and orchard development in the valley.”

Growth was also spurred by a branch line that connected White Bluffs and Hanford with Beverly and the Milwaukee Railroad.

“Known affectionately as ‘Sagebrush Annie,’ the Priest Rapids Valley branch train ‘enabled the farmers to ship large quantities of fruit and other produce to distant markets via a transcontinental railroad,’” Harvey wrote. “Murrel Dawson remembers that ‘Sagebrush Annie just came down and picked up the fruit at Vernita and White Bluffs and turned around and went back.’”

When residents of White Bluffs heard that the train was going to be coming near their town, they moved from the west bank of the Columbia about a mile inland to where the new railroad station would be built. This was the second time that White Bluffs had moved. In 1907, the town had moved from the east side of the river to the west to escape relatively frequent flooding.

The railroads and promoters advertised “cheap land” in the “‘promised land’ of irrigated farmlands and growing communities in the arid west.”

But life in that “promised land” wasn’t easy for the farmers and residents of White Bluffs and Hanford. “Nowhere to Remember” references interviews with people who used to live in the area.

“Interviewees recall the practice of ‘neighbor exchange,’ where neighbors would trade labor and machinery back and forth during relatively lull periods on the farm,” wrote Robert Franklin in chapter two of “Nowhere to Remember.” “Farm families tended to ‘look up at the town residents who earned money from steady jobs. Even within the ranks of farmers, there were divisions between prosperous and subsistence-level farmers, between those with orchards and those with ground crops. Most, if not all, farmers grew a diversity of crops, some for home consumption and others for export.”

Staples that couldn’t be grown in the area, such as coffee, sugar and flower, were procured on barter or with cash.

“Each town had a small mercantile store: the John Dam store in Richland, Reierson’s Grocery in White Bluffs and Boies’ store in Hanford,” Franklin wrote. “The area also had a creamery, fruit packing warehouses and ice houses for the shipment of tree fruits/soft fruits to outside markets. Each town had a grade and high school (some housed in the same building), a Grange Hall and several denominations of churches. White Bluffs boasted Pop English’s drugstore that served ice cream, a common remembrance among interviewees who visited as children; a movie theater run by Edmund Anderson that had weekly showings and the ‘White Bluffs Spokesman,’ a weekly newspaper.”

World War I veterans were given the opportunity to procure land with a one-bedroom house, a well, a pump and an outbuilding, typically a garage. They were also given some basic farming equipment. These pieces of land were given on loans. Veterans didn’t have to have any previous experience farming to get the land. But many couldn’t make enough money to keep the farm.

Everyone in the family was required to help on the farm, no matter their age.

“Children worked from an early age, with tasks increasing in complexity and strength over time. It would not do to call these ‘chores’ in the modern sense of the word – children on subsistence farms ran essential aspects of the farm operation,” Franklin wrote. “As children, Gordon Kaas and Emma Kleinknecht would wake up before dawn and cut asparagus before the school bus came – they would not get to go to school if they did not finish.”

It was typical for farms to get improvements over the house.

“If people were to start out from scratch – a piece of bare ground – it would be a big mistake to build a fancy house with a fancy kitchen, rugs on the floor before the farm,” said Walt Grisham, a former resident. “Needs were taken care of. The farm needs to buy the house. You can get by with the basics, but in time, if the farm is successful, it is going to buy the house.”

While life was hard, residents weren’t without opportunities for fun.

“Interviewees recall community events such as dances, sports, the Priest Rapids Band, holiday celebrations and informal gatherings that often consisted of swimming in the Columbia River or in the irrigation ditches,” wrote Franklin. “During many of the oral histories conducted over the years with former Hanford and White Bluffs residents, interviewees were asked to reflect on the community they called home. A few had less than fond memories. Morris Slavens, who left Hanford in 1937, had no love lost for the Priest Rapids Valley, saying ‘after I left Hanford, I was really happy to get out of that hot, you know, Godforsaken place, I really was.’ In regards to the life of the community, though, most were wistful and reflective about their lives in the Priest Rapids Valley. To Walt Grisham, ‘White Bluffs was a great place to grow up. It was something – the river was there, we worked in the orchards and we played in the river ... it was kind of like an oasis in the desert.’”

In the 1930s, the Priest Rapids Valley was hit by the Great Depression along with the rest of the country.

“The population decreased, numerous farms in the Mid-Columbia foreclosed and many stores were vacant in White Bluffs, Hanford and Richland,” Harvey wrote. “Farmers were receiving such low prices for their crops that much of the agricultural land was not under cultivation. Most residents who owned farms had to supplement their income with non-agricultural employment, and even bartering to make ends meet. Former residents recollected that while the Depression was an extremely rough time, living on farms in the Priest Rapids Valley at least allowed inhabitants to grow much of their own food.”

With the start of World War II, things began to improve economically. But the improvement would be short-lived.

“During the early 1940s, even as the region experienced the anxieties and economic concerns with wartime food and gas rationing, there was a general optimism in the Priest Rapids Valley that better times lay ahead,” Harvey wrote. “Agricultural exports were increasing and unemployment was decreasing. This all came to a dramatic halt when local residents received official condemnation notices from the U.S. government in March 1943. Farmers and merchants, families and friends – all would have to abandon their homes, businesses and properties for the war effort.”

On March 6, 1943, residents of White Bluffs and Hanford received letters from the federal government saying they had 30 days to leave their land. Their properties would be valued and they would receive money for it.

“It was a terrible shock,” said Annette Heriford, who grew up at Hanford. “I can’t describe it. It was unbelievable. It was a terrible blow. The last thing we were thinking was that somebody was going to say, ‘you have to be out in 30 days.’”

Those who were elderly, widowed and had no family ended up in institutions.

“They had no one,” said Jack Collins. “And the government just forced them out.”

Some of the residents dealt with bitterness over the loss of their homes, while others felt it was their contribution to the war effort.

“Much of the bitterness that remained long after 1943 for former Hanford, White Bluffs and Richland residents was related to what they saw as low appraisals and prices for their family homes and farms,” wrote Robert Bauman in chapter four of “Nowhere to Remember.” “Government appraisers were instructed to produce appraisals for over 2,000 tracts of land in the Priest Rapids Valley in a short period of time. Some residents accepted the government’s offer because they felt they had no choice and that it was the patriotic thing to do. Indeed, by June 1943, the federal government had failed to pay those residents who had agreed to the government’s price. As a result, many of those residents, who had little money, refused to leave until they received their payments for their land. Some remained throughout the summer of 1943.”

The Wanapum, like the settlers, were forced to leave their winter homes at the Priest Rapids. At first, they were allowed to continue fishing on the boundaries of the new Hanford site. But eventually, that was also taken away.

“Like the white residents of the communities in the Priest Rapids Valley, the Wanapum had also lost their land and the spaces and places of meaning,” Bauman stated.

Rachal Pinkerton may be reached via email at rpinkerton@columbiabasinherald.com.