Hanford townsite (ghost town)

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About 1,200 people lived in the Hanford area in 1940. The towns of Hanford and Richland had about 300 people each. Hanford was named after Judge Hanford of Seattle.

The effort to build a nuclear bomb was called the Manhattan Project. This area was chosen to be part of the Manhattan Project because the Columbia River provided an abundant supply of cold water and hydro-electric power. It was also near a major railroad center, Pasco. The weather was dry and fairly mild. The area was also away from any major population centers, which was good for security and for safety. The government looked at possible sites in Montana, Oregon and California, but none were as well-suited as Hanford.

In January 1943, Hanford was chosen as the place where plutonium would be made. Under the War Powers Act, the federal government bought the land from the people who lived here and relocated them. In all, the War Department took over about 1,644 square kilometers (640 square miles) of land, or about 166,050 hectares (410,000 acres). About one-eighth of that was farmland.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was the supervisor of the Manhattan Project, which also included Oak Ridge, Tennesse, and Los Alamos, New Mexico. The DuPont Company agreed to build and operate Hanford for cost plus a fee of $1, but finished ahead of schedule so received only 56 cents. DuPont refused to claim any profit from its work at Hanford because the company had been accused of profiteering during World War I and did not want its image tainted by such accusations.

To house all the construction workers, the Army Corps of Engineers set up the Hanford construction camp adjacent to the Hanford townsite. At one point there were 51,000 people at the construction camp, making it the fourth-largest city in the state--with the largest general delivery post office in the world.

The construction camp started with tents, but eventually there were over 800 barracks, 600 quonset huts, and a trailer camp with 4,300 people. An auditorium that could hold 4,000 dancers was built in 30 days. There were eight mess halls where 50 tons of food was served per meal. The price for all you could eat was 69 cents.

Even though there was plenty of food, the work at Hanford was demanding. The normal work week was 54 hours over 6 days. The pay was good, and overtime was paid after 40 hours.

However, the weather was often either extremely hot or cold and always dirty and dusty because so many native plants were being ripped up in the massive construction. Sometimes there was so much dust in the air that visibility was less than 91 meters (100 yards). Those dust storms were called termination winds because of the number of workers that would quit and leave Hanford after each storm.

During the war, jobs were not difficult to get, but workers were. Because of the rush to get Hanford going, people were recruited from around the nation to work here.

Today, the only evidence that the town of Hanford existed is the shell of the old Hanford High School. The school, which was built in 1916, went from 9th through 12th grade and saw its last graduating class in 1942.

The few trees you see here and there are left from the old farms. These trees have lived more than 40 years without irrigation. Hanford farmers planted a variety of trees for shade with most coming from the eastern United States. The black locust and Chinese elm trees have fared the best through the years.