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4.0 EURO-AMERICAN RESETTLEMENT OF THE HANFORD SITE, WASHINGTON

(Lewis and Clark 1805 - Hanford Engineer Works 1943)

By J. C. Bard and J. B. Cox
With the Assistance of R. McClintock
Richland, Washington

4.1 Statement of Purpose

This is a historic context statement for the Euro-American resettlement of the U.S. Department of Energys 560 square-mile Hanford Site in southeastern Washington. It is a narrative of the themes, trends, and patterns of history for the time period beginning with the Lewis and Clark expedition (1805) and ending with the creation of the Hanford Engineer Works (HEW) in 1943.

Although the Hanford Site area lagged behind other areas of the Pacific Northwest in terms of the timing and magnitude of Euro-American settlement, the coalescence of transportation links (railroads), government and private incentives to promote land settlement, and both private and government sponsored reclamation projects culminated in a small-scale homesteading boom in the Hanford Site locality in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Once established, the small agricultural communities of Hanford, White Bluffs, Richland, and others continued their development until the establishment of HEW in 1943.

This context statement emphasizes the homestead/farming period since most of the historic archaeological remains at Hanford pertain to agricultural development and related activities in the overall resettlement of the Hanford Site. This context statement should facilitate the determination of significance and National Register eligibility of historic properties dating from 1805 to the creation of the Hanford Engineer Works in 1943. This context statement is intended to be a dynamic document that can and will be changed to reflect new knowledge or understandings.

4.2 Introduction

This context statement is about how non-Indian peoples, primarily Euro-Americans, resettled the Hanford region after the Indian occupants were dispossessed of their land and how these new settlers managed to impose Euro-American land use systems on this arid region. The Euro-American resettlement of the Hanford Site transformed the area into an agriculturally-oriented region, dependent on irrigation made possible by well-funded organizations and/or government, characterized by both widely scattered farmsteads and small thriving towns whose economies served the rural, agrarian population.

The Hanford Site was occupied by Indians for several thousand years and the local Indians, particularly Smohalla and the Wanapums, clung tenaciously to their land and native economy throughout the late 19th century and resisted white culture. The arrival of white explorers and fur trappers, and the later arrival of Euro-American settlers (ranchers, farmers, etc.) can be viewed in terms of resettlement of an already occupied and settled land.

Explorations were designed to identify resources to be exploited, transportation routes to link the United States with Oregon, and to find a railroad route to Puget Sound and to identify potential farm or grazing lands. At the Hanford Site, the period of initial contact did not result in any significant settlement. In fact, with the exception of some exploration (Lewis and Clark and fur traders), trading posts, missions, and related developments occurred outside the boundaries of the Hanford Site. The fur traders and their sponsoring companies reluctantly contributed to regional exploration but their main focus was to keep out competitors.

Explorers noted Hanfords extreme aridity in comparison to other more favorable areas and the fur trappers likewise appreciated how local aridity provided poor habitat for fur-bearing animals. Stockmen concentrated on areas peripheral to the Hanford Site where more moisture and better soil conditions provided better bunch-grass grazing opportunities. Similarly, farmers migrating west to find suitable land bypassed Hanford for better watered locales such as the Walla Walla and Yakima River valleys. Only large, well-financed entities such as the Federal government and railroads provided the high levels of technological innovation, transportation and irrigation systems infrastructure, required to open up Hanford to agricultural development.

Resettlement of the Columbia Plateau began slowly, prior to the Civil War, within the larger context of the territorial expansion of the United States. While the Indians were intensively using the Columbia Rivers fish resources as a mainstay of their economy, Euro-American explorers were searching for lands capable of providing a variety of resources that could be developed for grazing, farming, and mining. Through time, Euro-American resettlement at Hanford was characterized by intensification of resource exploitation coupled with high levels of technological input. The indigenous peoples of the Hanford area did little to modify the environment in which they lived. Euro-American resettlement was characterized by deliberate environmental modification through the construction of dams, irrigation works, and the introduction of and large scale cultivation of non-native species.

Euro-Americans brought with them their own concepts of land ownership which were quite different than the native conceptions. Division of land and individual ownership were hallmarks of Euro-American settlement that redefined the landscape to fit their ideals and needs. The farmers and later, the railroads, were responsible for massive land reorganization and ownership patterns.

While most of the Euro-American settlers came to Hanford to pursue their individual or family goals, their movement into the Hanford area reflected the broad pattern of national expansion that was underpinned by such dominant cultural precepts as manifest destiny and the right to extinguish Indian title and transform the land. The Indians, whose land they were resettling, were seen as an impediment to such development.

The livestock industry was stimulated by mining booms in nearby areas and evolved from raising horses to beef cattle and eventually to sheep grazing. Later, stock raising was more diversified and meat and wool products were exported to a broader customer base. The decline of the livestock industry was partially fostered by the railroad companies who promoted and sold lands to farmers/settlers, thereby hastening the end of the open range. Stimulated by the railroad companies that promoted good land at reasonable prices and efficient transportation of goods to market, various agricultural endeavors could be undertaken in the Hanford area. It was also the railroads that had the money and organizational power to develop irrigation ventures that enhanced their ability to sell land to farmers and to ensure those farmers would succeed (and become good paying customers of the railroad). The legislative backdrop that stimulated agricultural development (e.g., various Federal land use laws, homesteading acts, and reclamation acts) is interlinked with the availability of transportation (railroads) and technological mastery of regional aridity (irrigation systems).

It was not until about 1900 that the necessary transportation and water management infrastructure and enabling legislation coalesced to the point that Euro-American resettlement of the Hanford Site could begin in earnest. These same Euro-Americans who took over control of the former Indian lands, were themselves displaced by the same government that displaced the Indians. The ranches and farms were seized by the Federal government in 1943 to create a reservation for the production of plutonium (the HEW) and the residents were bought out by the government and evacuated from the area.

4.3 The Setting

4.3.1 The Natural Setting

The Hanford Site is located in the Great Columbia Plain which is an open, semi-arid sagebrush country whose shrub-steppe landscape is the result of the interaction of climate with geology and physiography. Meinig (1968: 16) noted that the chief characteristic of the climate is its relatively low precipitation; the seasonal cycle is one of cool, moderately rainy and snowy winters, wet springs, hot, dry summers, and predominantly dry autumns. The demography and economy of this area has always been profoundly effected by topography, climate and drainage (cf. Nelson 1973: 372) and the seasonally and geographically restricted supply of surface water. In some areas it is possible to travel from a semiarid biotic community subsisting on less than 10 inches of rainfall to pine/fir forests subsisting on more than 30 inches of rainfall over a distance of 10 miles or less. Low temperatures and snow severely limited the distribution of Indian populations during the winter months from October to March and although most of the Columbia Plateau lies only between 1000 and 1500 feet above sea level, winters are severe with temperatures dropping below freezing in all but the most sheltered areas. The regions general aridity and climatic conditions played a large role in the resettlement of the Hanford Site by Euro-Americans.

4.3.2 The Human Setting

As explained in the Contact Period context statement, the Hanford Site was home to several Indian groups. Primarily as a result of disease, their numbers were increasingly reduced through the early decades of the 19th century and by the time they ceded their lands to the government at the Treaty Council of 1855, the Indians were well aware of the coming onslaught of white settlement. Although the early waves of settlers were primarily bound for Oregons Willamette Valley, in the later decades of the 19th century, cattlemen, sheepherders, and dryland farmers overran their lands and effectively marginalized those Indians still not taking refuge on the reservations. For their part, the Euro-Americans were motivated by a desire to improve their economic future. They traveled through the area on their way to the Willamette Valley to claim agricultural land and enjoy a healthier (non-malarial) climate than that being left behind in the Mississippi and Missouri river basins.

Once the Hanford Site area was resettled by Euro-Americans, it became quickly apparent that the natural environment provided ongoing challenges to agricultural development. Farmers were bothered particularly by animals who preyed upon their crops and poultry. Local farmers organized community drives to kill jackrabbits, rattlesnakes, crows, hawks, magpies, coyotes, and pocket gophers (Parker 1979: 178). It was not unusual for several thousand rabbits or birds to be killed in a single drive. In the 1940s, however, the large influx of population to the Hanford neighborhood brought so many sport hunters that the numbers of troublesome animals was kept down, and the need for drives ended (Parker 1979: 183, 260; Harris 1972: 145-46; Parker 1986: 160-61). Another natural challenge was the fierce dust storms that affected all residents. Perhaps the worst wind and dust storm in local memories occurred in June 1937, when packing sheds blew down and electrical wires became tangled from Yakima to Pendleton, Oregon (Parker 1986: 322-28). The greatest challenge, of course, was water. It was not until large-scale irrigation (reclamation) efforts were mobilized that the Euro-American settlers and farmers could successfully transform the land into an agriculturally productive area.

4.4 Statement of Historic Context

4.4.1 Introduction

The resettlement of the Hanford Site area occurred slowly at first. Non-Indian activities in the vicinity consisted primarily of exploration efforts, fur trapping and trading, missionary work among the Indians, and emigrants pushing through the region on their way to Oregon. Stimulated in part by gold rushes to the north, the Hanford Site vicinity began to be transformed by cattle ranching and later by the arrival of the railroad.

Although a small stream of settlers were entering the area and attempting to farm along the banks of the rivers and streams, it was railroad companies that promoted land sales and helped organize large-scale irrigation programs that greatly facilitated permanent resettlement by Euro-American farmers and homesteaders. Thus, while settlers were attracted to the Willamette Valley where fertile land and a temperate climate combined with generous homesteading act provisions awaited those willing to make the journey, the relatively arid land and dry climate of the Hanford Site vicinity could not readily support Euro-American resettlement without large inputs of technology - transportation and irrigation. By 1943, the Hanford Site was home to several hundred people who were primarily engaged in agricultural pursuits that were made possible by the coalescence of a number of factors including mainly enabling legislation that favored homesteading and reclamation/irrigation projects, adequate transportation (river barges, improved roads and rail lines), and the availability of capital (from the railroads and irrigation ventures) necessary to provide the irrigation and transportation infrastructure.

4.4.2 Exploration

Beginning in 1805-1806, when Lewis and Clark became the first non-Indians known to visit the vicinity of the Hanford Site, several parties of explorers, fur traders, missionaries, travelers, and soldiers passed through the area and recorded descriptions of it. The ceded lands within and surrounding the Hanford Site area did not experience permanent non-Indian settlement until after 1858, when the Yakama, Wanapum and other local Indian tribes were subjugated and when military orders closing large areas east of the Cascade Mountains to settlement were rescinded. After Lewis and Clark but before the outbreak of the post-treaty hostilities between the Indians and the Oregon volunteers, traders and agents of the Pacific Fur Company, the North West Company, and the Hudson's Bay Company often traveled along the major arteries of the Columbia and Snake Rivers and along smaller streams.

During the 1830s, Benjamin Bonneville and Samuel Parker came west on privately financed exploring trips, and Dr. and Mrs. Marcus Whitman established the first religious mission in the region near Walla Walla in 1836. The first United States Naval Exploring Expedition, under Lt. Charles Wilkes, examined the Columbia River as far upstream as The Dalles, and sent an overland party which traversed the Hanford region in 1841. In 1843, Marcus Whitman accompanied a large wagon train of settlers destined for Oregon's Willamette Valley, and ten years later the Longmire party crossed the locality and became the first emigrant group to scale the Cascades with wagons. Captain John Mullan investigated the region in 1853 and 1854, as part of a group appointed to survey a northern railroad route, and returned to the area to survey and build the Mullan Road between 1858 and 1863.

Military personnel and at least one wagon train (the 1853 Longmire party) did go through the area and leave written impressions as they traveled from Indiana to Puget Sound, becoming the first wagon train to cross the Cascades. Naval Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, as a part of his four-year mission to explore the Pacific Ocean from Antarctica to the Oregon Coast, sent an overland party to examine the interior of present-day Washington State. In the summer of 1841 this party, under Robert Johnson, became the first American group to cross the Cascade Mountains and they traveled through the Hanford Reach area to the Hudson's Bay Company posts at Fort Okanogan and Fort Colville.

White settlement of the region was greatly stimulated by the growth of transportation systems in the inland Northwest. Prior to 1858, whites followed Indian trails, but after the Yakima War, Lieutenant John Mullan surveyed a road for the U.S. Army, linking Fort Walla Walla with Fort Benton, Montana. Mullan, an assistant to Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens, ventured in and out of the Hanford region several times in his survey of a northern railroad route in 1853. In 1858, he joined Colonel George Wright's punitive expedition against the Indians. Advancing from the southeast in midsummer of 1858, he wrote his first description of the Hanford vicinity and touted its rolling prairie, mild and generous climate, rich soil, and its great navigable river.

Between the years 1859 and 1863, Mullan realized his dream of building a wagon road between Fort Walla Walla and Fort Benton. This road, constructed and funded by the War Department, provided the essential overland link for thousands of immigrants coming to Washington Territory via the Mississippi and Missouri River route. Once the road was finished, immigrants were able to ship their belongings up the two rivers, then unload their animals and wagons and trek over the northern Rocky and Bitterroot Mountains, enter Washington just south of present-day Spokane, follow the road southwest to the junction of the Walla Walla and Columbia Rivers, and continue their westward journey as far as desired by water. The road was begun at Wallula on June 25, 1858, from whence it proceeded northeast and crossed the Snake River at the mouth of the Palouse River. Lyon's ferry began to operate at this crossing, and served for over a century until it was replaced by a bridge in 1968.

Mullan was anxious for white settlement and cultivation to come to Washington. While Mullan might have had more favorable areas in mind as he boosted the white resettlement of Washington, his enthusiasm for the region was taken up by others in the coming years - particularly such boosters as well-financed railroads that would help transform the area of the Hanford Site into a land of ranchers and farmers. Shortly after the Mullan Road was completed, gold was discovered in Idaho and Montana and whites established several ferries on the Snake River to accommodate the miners.

4.4.3 Missionary Period

If it can be said that the period of the explorers and fur traders overlapped with the missionary period, key figures of the missionary period helped spawn the white influx and the eventual resettlement of the Hanford Site vicinity. Dr. Whitman was interested in promoting Protestant Americans emigration to Oregon in order to extend the jurisdiction of the United States over whatever part of the Oregon territory would be granted it by treaty with the British. Although the emigrants of 1841 and 1842 abandoned their wagons at Fort Hall, Whitman believed that the emigration of 1843 would take its wagons over the mountains into the Columbia River Valley (Drury 1986: 467-468). Drury (1986: 18) wrote that Dr. Whitman made three notable contributions to the opening of the Oregon country for American settlement:

He saw the feasibility of taking white American women over the Continental Divide while on an exploring tour to the Rockies in the summer of 1835. The successful crossing of the Rockies through South Pass by Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding on July 4, 1836, unlocked the mountain gateway for men who wanted to take their families with them to Oregon. Where women could go riding horseback on side-saddles, other women and children could follow in covered wagons;

Whitmans stubborn persistence made it possible in 1836 to take the first wheeled vehicle across a long section of the Oregon Trail extending from the Green River Rendezvous in the Rockies to Fort Boise. Where one wagon had gone, others could follow;

He was responsible in leading the first great Oregon emigration of about 1000 people in 1843 from Fort Hall into the Columbia River Valley. These three history-making achievements combined to encourage thousands of Americans to make the overland trek to Oregon after 1843. The decisive factor in the establishment of the boundary with Great Britain in 1846 at 490 was the numerical superiority of American settlers in Oregon over those of British citizenship.

The successful 1843 emigration was followed by larger migrations of Americans to Oregon, which put greater pressure on the government to extend its jurisdiction over the territory. However, none of the emigrants moving westward between 1843-1847 actually settled in the vicinity of the Hanford Site.

4.4.4 Mining and Ranching

The gold rush of the late 1850s in British Columbia provided the impetus for non-Indian settlement in the Hanford area. The resulting rush was reminiscent of the early days in California with herds of cattle and strings of pack horses moving north to supply the mushrooming camps (Johansen 1967: 265). Miners spread over the region with subsequent strikes occurring in present day British Columbia, Idaho, and Montana, continuing the rush through the middle 1860s. Meinig (1968: 221) described the Columbia Basins position:

Such a series of sensational discoveries made the mountainous interior Northwest the first great successor to California as the pre-eminent locality of far western mining ... Unlike California, mining was dispersed among a dozen important districts spread over a huge area, but Portland (like San Francisco) became the great entrepôt, and the Columbia Plain (like the Sacramento Valley) lay between the mines and the sea, and thus became directly bound up in the whole maelstrom of development.

By early 1859, steamboats were operating on the Columbia as far as White Bluffs, one of the first permanent settlements in the Hanford area. In addition to White Bluffs, Walla Walla, Wallula, The Dalles, and Umatilla became important points for the transfer of goods from the steamboats to pack strings. The initial White Bluffs settlement (the townsite was moved twice before it was demolished in the 1940s) was located on the east bank of the Columbia River at the base of the bluffs for which it is named.

By 1860, Thomas Howe was operating a ferry across the Columbia River at White Bluffs and a trading post was established three years later by A. R. Booth who had earlier taken over the ferry operation. The importance of White Bluffs as a transportation junction decreased in the late 1860s when the British Columbia mining boom subsided. At this time, the Mullen Road, which avoided sandy stretches north and east of White Bluffs, rose in popularity causing a sharp decline in the ferry traffic at White Bluffs. The decade of the 1870s witnessed shifts in the ownership of the White Bluffs ferry and landing site, but it remained significant for several more years. In fact, in 1876, 20 soldiers were briefly stationed there to protect travelers and ranchers because Smowhala the Dreamer, chief and priest of the Wanapums, was thought to be inciting trouble. When Fort Chelan was completed the next year, the soldiers left White Bluffs.

The gold rush also attracted Chinese miners into the area. As in other western mining areas, they were relegated to working abandoned claims and areas not deemed worthy of attention by white miners. By the mid- 1860s, Chinese miners were reported to be working gravel bars along much of the upper Columbia River and one author noted that there were over 1000 Chinese miners between Priest Rapids and Colville, especially along the east bank of the river below Wanapum Dam (cf. Hildebrand 1977 and Schalk, et al. 1982: 118). A subsequent influx of Chinese laborers occurred during construction of the railroads in the area. However, anti-Chinese sentiments (expressed in a 1923 promotional brochure for the state-sponsored White Bluffs-Hanford Land Settlement Project) suggests they did not remain to participate in the irrigation agriculture boom (Parker 1986: 242).

The influx of thousands of miners led to rapid development of ranching across the Columbia Plateau. Hundreds of stockmen spread across the region, taking advantage of the abundant grasslands. Meinig (1968: 222) characterized livestock as the one great product of the Columbia Plain in early 1860s. While cattle were extremely important in the early regional livestock industry, sheep, hogs, horses, mules, and burros (usually called "Mexican mules" or "pack mules") were also of some importance. The Walla Walla newspaper reported in 1866 that 6000 mules were in use and 1500 horses had been sold to persons en route to the mines (Meinig 1968: 222).

The sheep industry grew alongside that of cattle. The first large flock of 4500 head was driven into the Yakima region in late 1861 and by March 1862, only 45 were left. However, one terrible winter was not a major deterrent, and numerous flocks were imported over the next few years.

The earliest and most successful cattleman in the Hanford vicinity was Benjamin Snipes who wintered a herd in the Yakima Valley in 1855-56 before driving them to the mines in British Columbia. When he learned of the meat shortage in the British Columbia mining districts, Snipes examined the Hanford region for its suitability for raising cattle and during his reconnaissance, forded the river at White Bluffs, crossed the Hanford Site diagonally to the southwest, traversed the Rattlesnake Hills, and returned to the Yakima Valley (Sheller 1957: 35-38). Snipes' first cattle drive through the Hanford area required nearly two years of effort, but it yielded him enough profit to establish himself firmly in the cattle business in the Yakima Valley. During his cattle drive, he crossed the Columbia a few miles below Priest Rapids, enlisting experienced Wanapum men to assist them.

The market for beef in the British Columbia gold-mining district continued to be lucrative for ranchers in the Hanford region until the mid-1860s, and it was the factor most responsible for the earliest permanent non-Indian settlement of the area. Other ranchers and traders who settled in the Hanford vicinity in the early 1860s were also drawn to the unpopulated district by the lure of supplying the mining districts. Jordan Williams located a herd of cattle on the first White Bluffs townsite (on the east bank of the Columbia) in 1861, attracted to the location as a "noted range with its sandgrass and white sage. We could gather fat cattle in winter and spring when they were poor in every other place" (Parker 1979: 15).

The cattle business around the Hanford Site remained important during the 1860s but was a volatile undertaking due to shifting demand and rough winters. The British Columbia mines, the primary market for Hanford area cattle, tapered off rapidly by the end of the decade. In 1868, desperate for new markets, Hanford cattlemen drove stock over Naches Pass and later over Snoqualmie Pass seeking to supply the Puget Sound. But, Puget Sound consumers could absorb only a small portion of the beef available, and meat prices paid to ranchers dropped considerably (Sheller 1957: 200-210).

Although severe winter weather caused periodic decimation of cattle herds in the region, cattle ranching continued in the Hanford area during the 1870s. In fact, Hanford cattle were used to re-supply weather decimated herds in Montana and Wyoming. For the most part, large cattle drives out of the Hanford vicinity were finished by the early 1870s. Also, by the mid-1870s, the sheep business had expanded so rapidly in the Columbia Basin that conflicts arose between cattlemen and sheepherders (Oliphant 1968: 338). However, the sheep business declined as sharply as it had arisen, and by 1890 there was less than one-third the number of sheep in the vicinity as there had been 10 years previously. All types of stockmen near the Hanford Site were affected by the same historical forces, leading to an overall slump in their business (Oliphant 1968: 341-345).

Ranching declined in the early 1880s in the Hanford vicinity and across the Columbia Plain due to the coming of the railroad, extensive farming and fencing, and overgrazing and subsequent range depletion. Primary factors relating to the decline of the cattle industry were the construction of a railroad link to the eastern United States and the expansion of farming. The Northern Pacific Railroad was completed to Ainsworth, near the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers, in 1883. The establishment of that connection with the eastern United States accelerated the settlement of the area by wheat farmers which in turn led to extensive fencing and closing of the open ranges on which the cattlemen depended. But without irrigation, the lands around the Hanford Site could not be cultivated and thus the cattle ranching period appears to have lasted somewhat longer in the Hanford area than in the rest of the Columbia Plateau. That is, the slower shift from ranching to farming in the Hanford area was probably due in large part to the relative aridity of the Hanford site. In the uplands east of the Columbia, the conversion to agriculture occurred earlier since that area receives enough rainfall to allow dryland farming. But, agricultural development of much of the Hanford site was simply impossible without irrigation.

According to Meinig (1968: 267), the area west of the Columbia River remained largely cattle and sheep country into the 1880s. In her history of the early communities of the Hanford Reservation, Parker (1986: 33) states that the Hanford area continued to be used for grazing into the 1890s when thousands of horses and cattle grazed from the Yakima far to the south, to the Columbia, all through the land now under the Hanford Atomic Reservation.

4.4.5 Farming and Railroads

Farming on the Columbia Plateau began in the 1860s in the Walla Walla Valley east of the Hanford site. Initial agricultural settlement focused on the scattering of low, level ground nestled inls on the eastern margins of the plateau. Here they were able to find flat land, water, timber, and hay. Farming expanded across the eastern plateau with the pace of settlement increasing in the 1870s as farmers realized that the rolling, grassy hills covering much of the region could be successfully farmed. This opened vast areas for agricultural settlement that had been previously avoided. By the 1880s, expansion of agriculture in the area east of the Columbia River brought an end to open-range cattle ranching there (Meinig 1968: 284).

As noted above, the more arid conditions in the Hanford area prevented the spread of dryland farming into the area and agricultural development lagged. Some small scale irrigation occurred around the Hanford Site, but this was primarily in support of the still dominant ranching activities. Agriculture at Hanford did not begin in earnest until the development of irrigation projects. Construction of these works began along the Yakima River in the 1890s but large scale irrigation projects on the Hanford site were not successfully undertaken until the early 1900s.

One of the primary impulses for agriculture in the region was the development of adequate transportation facilities. Riverboats had been operating on the Columbia River since the mining booms of the 1860s but the few that continued in operation into the 1870s were unable to handle the wheat produced in the Walla Walla area during that period. Railroads were needed to transport the huge volumes of grain produced in the rapidly expanding region.

The first railroad constructed on the Columbia Plateau was the Walla Walla and Columbia River Railroad (WW&C). It was completed in 1875 by local interests, connecting Walla Walla with river boats landing at Wallula by following a 25-mile route along the Walla Walla River. The WW&C was purchased the following year by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company (OR&N) which controlled the riverboat traffic on the Columbia. The OR&N completed a rail line from Wallula to Portland in 1882, thereby providing direct access to a deep water port for the growing grain area of the Columbia Plateau. The following year, 1883, the transcontinental Northern Pacific Railroad was completed to Ainsworth, a new railroad settlement located at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers (Meinig 1968: 258). The establishment of a transcontinental railroad through the district surrounding the Hanford Site delivered the most telling blow to the ranching business of the area. The railroad brought large numbers of settlers interested in farming and fencing, and the railroad companies had the money to finance irrigation projects to make the land productive and saleable.

The completion of these rail lines affected the development of agriculture in the inland Pacific Northwest in two important ways. First, they provided efficient access to markets in the eastern United States and around the Pacific Rim. In addition, the railroads improved access to the region for settlers and manufactured goods entering the area. Both of these had the effect of spurring growth across the region. Initially, the Northern Pacific used the OR&N tracks down the Columbia to Portland while at the same time building west through the Yakima Valley and across Stampede Pass to the Puget Sound. The towns of Pasco and Kennewick were founded by the company in 1884 with the bridge crossing the Snake River between Pasco and Ainsworth completed that year. The bridge across the Columbia, joining Kennewick and Pasco, was completed in 1888. Prior to completion of these bridges, railroad cars were ferried across the two rivers. Construction of the Northern Pacific brought additional Chinese laborers into the Hanford area who had originally entered the region during the gold rush era when they worked gravel bars along much of the upper Columbia River.

A second major rail line, the Spokane, Portland, and Seattle (SP&S), was built through the southern Hanford area between 1904-08. The SP&S ran southwest from Spokane to the Snake River which it followed to Ainsworth, which, having been largely abandoned following completion of the Northern Pacifics Snake River Bridge, saw a brief period of revival. The new line crossed the Columbia at Pasco and followed the north bank of the Columbia River to Vancouver, Washington.

At the same time the SP&S was being built south of the Hanford Site, the transcontinental Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul was under construction to the north. This line had a greater impact on the Hanford Site through the construction of its Priest Rapids Spur Line in 1913. The spur left the main line near Beverly and followed the west bank of the Columbia southward and eastward through Vernita and White Bluffs to the town of Hanford.

Several unsuccessful attempts were made to develop additional rail service on what later became the Hanford Reservation. In 1907 the Hanford Irrigation, Power, and Priest Rapids Railway Company announced it would build a rail line to Hanford to be powered by electricity but it was never built (Parker 1986: 55). Additional efforts were also proposed but never realized. Parker (1986: 55) characterized the desire for the development of this important infrastructure:

The coming of the railroad was an event that was fought over and fought for all the remaining years until the government take-over in 1943. Richland spent many dollars and much time trying to get a spur into town and in later years an incorporation of local men was formed to join Kennewick and Hanford by rail. It was never to be, until the Army COE needed the railroad to receive supplies . . .

Richlands efforts to develop rail connections with Kennewick and the Hanford/White Bluffs area were, no doubt, based in a desire to become the main shipping point for agricultural products of the surrounding area.

4.4.6 Farming and Irrigation

Agricultural development in the Hanford Site area could not succeed without artificial irrigation. Although irrigation projects were being developed along the Yakima River in the 1890s, large scale irrigation projects at the Hanford Site were not successfully undertaken until after the turn of the century. The first attempt by Euro-Americans to artificially irrigate the arid lands of the Columbia Basin was the small-scale irrigation system developed by Dr. Whitman in the late 1830s/early 1840s to facilitate subsistence farming at the mission. The results were so encouraging that Dr. Whitman widely touted the area and its agricultural potential to possible emigrants.

Early Efforts

As early as 1870, some settlers in the Yakima and Wenatchee valleys had diverted water to reclaim arid lands. Early farmers in the Yakima Valley completed the Ahtanum Canal in 1874 and an even more ambitious project was constructed near Yakima - the seven mile long Union Gap ditch (Dryden 1968: 202-203).

Interestingly, it was cattlemen who helped foster the advent of irrigation in the region. As a result of the disastrous losses in livestock due to the severe winter weather conditions in 1880-1881 and again in 1886-1887, stockmen began constructing small dams and gravity flow irrigation systems in the Lower Yakima valley in an effort to grow alfalfa and rye grass. Each farm or ranch had its own system and Ben Rosencrance, who settled in what is now Richland, was among the first settlers to build such systems (Parker 1986: 170).

Most immigrants to the Hanford vicinity initially planned to grow wheat, hops, and/or alfalfa, but they soon found that they could grow almost anything if they could get water. Experimental crops of melons, vegetables, berries, sugar cane, peanuts, maize, flowers and fruit trees all thrived (Harris 1972: 50). An additional incentive for attempting crop irrigation came from the Desert Land Act, passed by Congress in 1877, which allotted 640 acres of land to a homesteader if he irrigated at least 80 of those acres (Lavender 1958: 434-39).

A number of farmers in the White Bluffs-Priest Rapids area used a sort of water elevator, which consisted of an endless chain of buckets powered by a horse (Harris 1972: 63). Other small irrigation devices such as individual windmills, water wheels, or makeshift dams diverted water from nearby rivers and creeks into wooden ditches or flumes to gravity flow into nearby fields. By 1890, many small steam vacuum pumps, which were placed directly over wells or streams, were in use. These were often weak and the related piping systems were often inadequate. On the peninsula between the Yakima and Columbia Rivers, Nelson Rich dug a private canal about one and one-half miles long, headed on the Yakima River several miles below the Horn, and grew two successive crops of alfalfa, barley, hops, cabbages, onions, and potatoes on former sagebrush land. (Van Arsdol 1972b: 24, 38-39; Parker 1979: 19, 43).

At first, the early settlers, such as Rosencrance, kept close to the rivers or the perennial creeks flowing from the mountains and such was the case in the drier areas such as the Yakima Valley. This conservative strategy generally worked well, though, on occasion, some unlucky pioneer who was located away from a stream might find that he had misjudged the availability of water on his land and was forced to haul water from a neighbors well or creek (cf. Meinig 1968: 301). But as settlement pressures increased and colonization began to push in toward the more arid center of the Columbia Basin, domestic water supply became a more serious difficulty and impediment to agricultural development. By about 1888, some settlers were drilling wells with some success, but a general deficiency of water afflicted the area for many more years (cf. Meinig 1968: 301).

The Beginnings of Organized Irrigation Schemes

In the decade of the 1890s, the Yakima Irrigation and Improvement Company [YI & IC] built the first major irrigation canal on or near the Hanford Site area. Starting in January 1892, the company began canal construction commencing at the headgates at the Horn of the Yakima (Horn Rapids), then proceeding along the west side of the river to Kennewick. The Kennewick townsite was platted and during periods of favorable economic conditions, increasing numbers of people came to make their homes there.

The YI & IC took control of the odd numbered land sections in the lower Yakima Valley, totally almost 40,000 acres. The even number sections were owned by the Northern Pacific Railroad. The YI & IC planned to begin construction, in the spring months, of a large canal which was to head at a point several miles above Kiona, go around the foot of Rattlesnake Mountain, and continue northeast to Sharkeys landing on the Columbia. Another branch of the canal was to cross the Yakima and continue to a point opposite Wallula (Parker 1986: 17-18).

The land to be watered by this YI & IC canal ranged between 340 and 390 feet above sea level and was considered to be the earliest [ripening/harvestable] of any of the agricultural land north of California and would supply the coastal cities which otherwise received their produce by boat from San Francisco. It is not, therefore, hard to imagine the excitement and enthusiasm felt by the residents of this sparsely populated area on the lower Yakima as they envisioned the benefits of the apparent coming of water to their desert lands. In fact, there was a great rush to file (claims) on the land along the projected irrigation ditches. Thousands of acres were entered at the Walla Walla land offices under the Homestead and Desert Land laws in the winter of 1888-1889 (Parker 1986: 17-18).

Unfortunately, the national financial panic of 1893 through 1896 caused the YI & IC to fall into financial ruin and a large break in the ditch pretty much sealed the fate of this company. The failure of the YI & IC was, for a time, a major set-back for regional agricultural development and many farms were subsequently deserted and many settlers moved away (Parker 1986: 32). Even though the company went into receivership and the ditch enterprise should have been terminated, too much money had been invested in large tracts of land (that had been purchased from the Northern Pacific Railroad) to permit the scheme to lie dormant. On the west side of the Columbia, this project was resumed in 1902 when the Northern Pacific Railroad formed a subsidiary to complete that undertaking. This new railroad company subsidiary also laid out the townsite of Kennewick once again, and several hundred residents were on hand to celebrate the arrival of the first water in the ditch in 1903. Two years later the Richland canal was constructed to serve the peninsula between the Yakima and Columbia (Meinig 1968: 301).

Parker (1986: 18) also commented:

The first Yakima Irrigation and Improvement Company scheme to irrigate the east slope of Rattlesnake Mountain sounds remarkably like Ledbetters plan, which Mrs. Harris describes thusly: As early as 1893, a private plan for irrigating the land in the southern White Bluffs area was started, but it proved to be a big task. About ten years later, government engineers reported that the Ledbetter scheme was one of the most attractive in the whole area. Ledbetter, an eastern promoter, tried to irrigate over 200,000 acres by diverting water from the Yakima River near Prosser Falls. Traces of the ditch are still visible. Part of the land was Rattlesnake Flat, to the east of Rattlesnake Mountain, where there was very fertile soil. The project extended from Gable Mountain on the north to the Columbia on the east. The project collapsed because of the Panic of 1893.

Not only was the decade of the 1890s an important one in terms of these regionally and locally important irrigation schemes, some of which ultimately succeeded (see above), but it was also the time when the first irrigation districts were organized. In 1890, the Washington state legislature passed a law authorizing irrigation districts to issue bonds to pay for operating costs but the state clearly lagged behind other states in irrigation development and at that time, had the smallest acreage under irrigation. By 1900, the effects of this law were finally being felt as individuals and small irrigation companies were digging ditches and bringing water to a very limited acreage, principally in Yakima County (The Hanford Site area was part of Yakima County until Benton County was created in 1905.) (Dryden 1968: 243).

The importance of these organized irrigation efforts cannot be over emphasized. With the help of this state legislation and better organized irrigation efforts, by 1910 there was a string of bustling towns winding through the narrow corridors of irrigated farmland on either side of the Yakima River (Meinig 1968: 448). Further, it was the emergence of irrigation agriculture that helped usher in the boom years of the early 20th century (Meinig 1968: 301).

The Newlands Reclamation Act and its Impact on Regional Irrigation Projects

The most important irrigation development in the opening years of the 20th century was passage of the Newlands Reclamation Act of June 17, 1902. Its passage marked the beginning of planned, coordinated survey and development of the irrigation potentialities of the entire Columbia Basin. It also provided the financial and organizational muscle needed to bring the mford area, under an effective program of irrigation. One of the first fruits of the Reclamation Act was the assumption of federal control of local irrigation projects.

In the time period immediately following passage of the Reclamation Act, however, many small-scale, large-dream plans for pumping or diverting water from the Columbia and its tributaries were born and died and a few survived somewhat longer by desperate persistence. For a time, only small canals were being proposed, such as the one from Priest Rapids on the Columbia to White Bluffs, some 20 miles away, to irrigate 5,000 acres (cf. Relander 1961: 146). Johansen (1967: 393) commented about the situation in eastern Washington just at the time the Reclamation Act was passed. She noted that in the Palouse Valley and the Big Bend of the Columbia there were large areas suitable for irrigation but costs were prohibitive and remained so for some years.

The importance of the Reclamation Act cannot be underestimated. Passage of the act inspired local confidence, settlement and investment (Edwards 1981: 113). President Theodore Roosevelt visited North Yakima on May 25, 1903 and pointed to the Reclamation Act as marking the beginning of "a policy more important to this country's internal development than any since the Homestead Law of Lincoln's time."

Three key goals guided the reclamation program under the Act: (1) to plan and construct major improvements by means of a federal agency; (2) to design and carry out each project so as to provide maximum benefits for the entire area in which it was located; and (3) to make federally financed projects self-liquidating. The last goal was to be accomplished by charging costs against the lands they served and eventually by transferring ownership and management of the canals (though not the dams and reservoirs) to associations of water users (Johansen 1967: 392). Thus, under the Reclamation Act, the burden of watering the land came to fall on the shoulders of the federal government.

Meinig (1968: 381) observed that the total area that could be irrigated under these projects was only a small part of the agricultural acreage of the region, and the total acreage actually in production was an even smaller fraction since it took time to complete the full network of facilities. But these figures provide no measure of the importance of irrigation to the development of the region. Once in full production, these lands would yield high returns and support relatively dense rural populations. Moreover, together these various irrigation projects represented an important phase in the elaboration of the geographic patterns of regional development. The areas developed for irrigation were arid and had not been farmed before. Further, the spread of irrigation agriculture was complementary rather than competitive with the advance of the dryland farming. By 1905, at least a beginning had been made in nearly all of the agricultural districts which could feasibly be developed on the basis of local water supplies. Closely associated with the irrigation projects was the establishment of many new towns in the region, most of which were platted and promoted by the irrigation companies themselves. In addition, as these farm and town developments grew, the settlers and residents often agitated for construction of new railroads lines.

Local Irrigation Efforts after the Newlands Reclamation Act

The first YI & IC and Ledbetter ditches were planned to irrigate the east slope of Rattlesnake Mountain and were partly built; traces of them can still be found today. The second YI & IC ditch headed at the Horn of the Yakima use on the north and east side of Yakima River.

A YI & IC ditch that was important to the development of the early town of Richland was one that was under the ownership of Nelson Rich. It headed at the Yakima River several miles below the Horn and was the same ditch purchased by Howard S. and W. R. Amon that stimulated the growth of Richland in 1905. Even as these land-owners began to realize the benefits of the YI & IC, more ambitious plans were being conceived for areas to the north of the newly burgeoning town of Richland. Today, all but the faintest traces of the ditch are gone (Parker 1986: 19).

In December 1905, the Priest Rapids Irrigation and Power Company was organized in Seattle for the purpose of reclaiming 32,000 acres of arid land along the Columbia River 30 miles above Richland. This scheme was the forerunner of the Hanford Irrigation and Power Company (Parker 1986: 46-47). Before the ditch associated with this scheme was constructed, local farmers used gasoline pumps and water wheels to irrigate their land (Parker 1986: 37). Only one year after its conception, the Hanford Irrigation Company ditch was under construction by December 1906 (Parker 1986: 48). By March 1907, C. S. Hanford reported that about fifteen miles of canal had been completed, using 150 teams and 250 men. The power intake canal was completed in March 1908 and was reportedly 76 feet wide at the bottom, 140 feet wide at the top and 25 feet deep (Parker 1986: 58-59). Hanfords low line ditch was finished and the power plant was built during the winter when the water was low. This low line ditch was to water 20,000 acres and the later planned high line ditch would bring the total acreage to 32,000.

By 1908, the White Bluffs Irrigation Company had started work on its system, stimulated by completion of the (Howard Amon and Lee Amsbury) ditch in 1905 (Parker 1986: 59). Both pumping plants for the White Bluffs irrigation project were operational by the end of 1908 (Parker 1986: 59). Nearby, the irrigation of the Priest Rapids Valley began with the construction of a power plant at the foot of Priest Rapids. Lands south and west of the river came under irrigation as a result (Schalk et al. 1982: 120).

Irrigation development in the Cold Creek Valley (NW area of Hanford Site) differed from other parts of the Hanford Site in two important ways. First, unlike the rest of the Hanford Site which relied on water from the Yakima and Columbia Rivers for irrigation, water for irritation in Cold Creek Valley was obtained from artesian wells which were dug in the late 1910s and 1920s. Second, individual farmers could drill a well and construct their own irrigation systems. On the remainder of the Hanford Site, irrigation was developed by large organizations because of the need to provide high volumes of water to thousands of acres of land.

In the Cold Creek Valley, water from the artesian wells was carried to cultivated fields by gravity systems consisting of shallow ditches, pipe (wood, concrete, ceramic, and metal) and small cedar board flumes. The artesian systems remained in operation until the establishment of the Hanford Engineering Works in 1943, although the water output of many of the earlier wells was substantially reduced when the McGee Ranch well was dug in 1928.

4.4.7 Resettlement - Growth of Local Communities

Various federal land and water programs played an important role in the Euro-American resettlement and development of the Hanford Site area. Once the lands on what was to become the Hanford Site were ceded to the U.S. government by the tribes, the most important way in which these lands were transferred into the private ownership of settlers was the Homestead Act of 1862. Under that act, any citizen who was the head of a family or a single man over the age of 21 years could obtain 160 acres free by residing on the claim for five years and making certain minimal improvements. Ben Rosencrance filed a homestead claim as part of the original holdings of his large cattle operation centered around the mouth of the Yakima River in the 1880s (Parker 1986: 16). By the early 1890s, settlers in the White Bluffs area had filed homestead claims along both sides of the Columbia River.

Another important law used by settlers in the Hanford Site area was the Desert Land Act of 1877. Under this act, 640 acres could be purchased at $1.25 per acre upon proof it had been placed under irrigation within three years. As in other regions, settlers at Hanford sometimes filed under more than one land act. But probably the most common way that settlers acquired government lands in the Hanford Site area was through the railroads, who themselves had been granted odd-numbered sections of land by the government. For example, part of the original charter of the Northern Pacific Railroad included the government grant of the odd-number sections, on either side of the line, for a distance of 20 miles. As heavy promoters of land development and settlement, and key players in the organization of irrigation schemes, the railroads eagerly sold these government granted lands to the willing settlers.

White Bluffs, Hanford, Richland

As noted earlier, the first Euro-American community on the Hanford Site was White Bluffs. The original townsite was established in the early 1860s on the east bank of the Columbia River. The ferry and river boat landing made the town an important point on the route to the mines in British Columbia. Much was expected of the new community. The Portland Oregonian for March 1, 1866, reported:

A second Sacramento; We are informed that a company has been formed at the Dalles who intended putting 25 heavy freight trams on the portage from White Bluffs to Pend Oreille at once and increase the number as required. These teams will start form White Bluffs by March 10. Thus we see another very important link in the communications with Montana supplies. We have ever looked upon White Bluffs as a starting point in this great trade, and we have no doubt that, relying on the merits of the route above, will continue to prosper, and it may become in time the Sacramento of the Columbia Valley. Already a hotel and several stores have been established there. The pioneers of the town, Booth and Nevison, have already purchased a very extensive stock of goods. The town is to be properly surveyed, now that permanency is no longer a matter of doubt.

However, traffic through White Bluffs dropped sharply following the precipitous decrease in mining activity in British Columbia that occurred after 1865. However, the site continued to be an important river crossing, much as it had been for the local Indians and early travelers.

Settlement in the White Bluffs area was stimulated again in the early 1890s with the completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad bridge across the Columbia in 1888. The narrow band of land between the river and the base of the bluffs was unable to accommodate all of the land seekers and some settled on the west bank of the river across from White Bluffs.

Further development of the area west of the river awaited irrigation. In 1896, the Northern Pacific Railroad studied the White Bluffs area for the potential development of an irrigation project and the Northwestern Improvement Company made a similar study in 1904. Both companies concluded that the project would be too expensive and did not pursue it. But, in 1905 the Priest Rapids Irrigation and Power Company announced plans to develop an irrigation system to water 32,000 acres using water pumped from the Columbia. The company bought land in the White Bluffs area (now located on the west bank of the river) and at what was to become the Hanford townsite. The Hanford townsite was platted in 1907 and the second White Bluffs townsite was platted a year later.

Even though the enterprise was faced with numerous problems (including the split of the original company into separate Hanford and White Bluffs companies, only to merge again in 1910, and the delay in delivery of water until 1909), settlement of the Hanford/White Bluffs area proceeded rapidly. This development was part of a general pattern across the Columbia Plateau which Edwards (1981: 112-113) described:

... [between 1906 and 1911] the Yakima, Columbia, and Snake River valleys . . . enjoyed a boom: new towns appeared and old ones expanded, railroads offered improved service, more irrigation canals were dug through the sage lands, and newcomers, especially middle-class farmers, moved onto and improved the lands. Between 1900 and 1910, the population burgeoned, in North Yakima from 3,200 to 14,000, in Ellensburg from 1,700 to 4,200, and in Prosser from 200 to 1,300. New incorporated towns like Sunnyside, Granger, Kennewick, and Clarkston were a further indication of prosperity. Those years saw a 118 percent increase in the number of irrigated farms, an extension of main irrigation ditches from 806 to 2,594 miles, and a jump in acreage irrigated from 135,500 to 334,400 - - a rise of 147 percent.

So many settlers came to take up homestead claims in the White Bluffs area between 1892 and 1894 that there was little room for them on the east bank of the Columbia between the river and the bluffs, and most settled on the west bank opposite the original White Bluffs townsite.

Settlement of Richland was boosted as a result of the Northern Pacific's promotions of the Kennewick neighborhood in the late 1880s/early 1890s and the coming of the Northern Pacific Railroad to the area surrounding the Hanford Site. The majority of new settlers were interested in farming, and their arrival hastened the transition of the regional economy to agriculture.

During the years from 1906 to 1910, when Richland, White Bluffs, and Hanford were experiencing their greatest irrigation booms, promotions of the region were lavish. Photographer Asahel Curtis was hired by land companies, railroads, and commercial clubs during the height of the promotional boom in Eastern Washington, and his work illustrated many of the advertising brochures of the Hanford vicinity between 1906 - 1910. Curtis captured some of the most diverse and unique pictures of the irrigation and development boom in the Hanford Site area. Brochures and flyers were printed in the thousands and widely distributed. A 36-page booklet produced by the Richland Land Company (ca. 1909) described the area in glowing terms and stated that a man can, upon a ten-acre tract in this country, under irrigation, make a more independent living, and build up a better bank account, than upon a 160-acre farm in either the East or West, without irrigation (Parker 1986: 91). A similar brochure produced around the same time by the Columbia River Land Company characterized White Bluffs as The California of the Northwest (Parker 1986: 124).

As the irrigation projects were being built in the middle years of the first decade of the 20th century, farmers in the White Bluffs and Hanford areas were making major investments in their lands. With the promise of ample water, large orchards of apples, pears, and plums were planted. Since these young trees would require several years to grow into mature fruit-bearing production, the farmers often planted other cash crops (such as strawberries or alfalfa) between the rows of tree saplings. Unfortunately, when some of these irrigation projects failed to deliver the promised water on time, or in the quantities promised, many farmers experienced significant loss to their young orchards and sued the irrigation companies for damages.

Railroads and Community Growth

With the passage of the Newlands Reclamation Act, the heavy promotion of the area by railroad and irrigation interests, and the successful implementation of irrigation projects, the small towns within the Hanford Site experienced boom-time conditions through much of the first and second decades of the 20th century. The major event of the decade was the completion of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad to Hanford in May of 1913 providing a transcontinental rail link for the White Bluffs-Hanford area (e.g., the Priest Rapids Line). With the arrival of the Priest Rapids Line into the White Bluffs and Hanford area, the farmers were better able to ship large quantities of fruit from their maturing orchards. Not only were produce prices up as a result of war-time demand, but with the arrival of this rail link, transportation costs to ship produce eased.

As noted above, local farmers, who faced the twin problems of expensive water and transportation costs, frequently turned to the courts. Numerous law suits were filed against irrigation companies that failed to provide promised water supplies. Undoubtedly, these problems contributed to the establishment of several grower associations during the early years of the second decade of the 20th century. Local farmers did persevere and during the World War I years, they found a ready market for their agricultural products.

Soldier Settlement Project

As the pace of development slowed after World War I, in an effort to further stimulate development in the Hanford-White Bluffs area, the state supported a soldier-settlement project that got underway in the early 1920s. The project was intended to establish World War I veterans on 20-acre plots of land containing a house, barn, poultry house, and a well. The initial project included 58 plots which was later expanded to 90 (e.g., 1800 acres). Soldiers could purchase a plot for about $5,000 with $600 down payment. At least initially, the project was a success in that soldiers and their families began arriving at the settlement areas in 1922. However, problems including drought, low crop prices, and difficulties with farming the light soils of the Hanford Site area caused many of the soldier-settlers to default on payments and move away. In 1926, the state declared the settlement a failure. Deeds were given to 50 soldiers who had made partial payment for their properties and the remainder of the plots were sold at auction (Parker 1986: 259).

The Great Depression

The experience of the local soldier-settlers at the Hanford Site mirrored tough conditions throughout the region. In the 1920s, the Columbia Basin was experiencing depressed economic conditions typical of the many rural areas in the country that went into economic decline five to ten years before the nationwide depression. The rural community was no longer receiving a high return on their produce as they had experienced during World War I. Years of poor agricultural practices, especially on submarginal lands like those found in the Columbia Basin, resulted in the dust bowl conditions. Thus, power development projects of the 1930s, like Grand Coulee Dam, were geared towards supplying energy to the expanding urban centers. Similarly, initiation of the Columbia Basin Reclamation Project was intended to reclaim marginal lands that could only be cultivated with irrigation (Harvey 1982: 200).

The Great Depression of the 1930s inflicted severe suffering in the Hanford area. Crop prices fell in the postwar contraction of the early 1920s, and did not recover until World War II. The Hanford Site area, which was agriculturally based, did not experience the speculative, inflationary boom that occurred in the industrialized portions of the nation in the late 1920s. Thus, it was spared an economic "crash" in late 1929 or 1930. In fact, the Great Depression was slow to reach the Hanford vicinity and farm prices rose slightly in 1929. This rise, combined with railroad competition which lowered freight rates in 1930 and 1931, brightened the area's agricultural picture a bit. However, the impact of the Great Depression, after 1931, was devastating.

When the Great Depression reached the Hanford Site in 1932, farm product values had slid by 30 percent from the levels of 1930. By 1934, all Washington farm goods except potatoes and wool were selling at prices below those of 1917. Local newspapers carried stories of tight money and business closures, as retail stores, banks, insurors, and others dependent on sales to Hanford Siteemselves without paying customers. In 1932, local railroad employees received a 10-percent pay cut and many lost their jobs entirely and waited several years to be recalled. In 1932, a cattle drive, reminiscent of a bygone era, was made by Yakima Valley ranchers as a way to save shipping costs and realize a profit. Five hundred head of Herefords from Toppenish were driven to the Rattlesnake Hills and across the Hanford Site where they swam the Columbia River at White Bluffs, and then northward along Benjamin Snipes' route to British Columbia (Parker 1979: 295-98, 315).

Despite local and state government efforts, it was several federal projects that sustained the Hanford Site area and prevented much more severe, regional financial collapse. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) loans, and the 1936 Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act were helpful. The Federal Surplus Commodity Corporation purchased millions of pounds of surplus food in Washington in 1936 which was given to relief agencies for distribution. In 1935, less than one-tenth of Hanford area farms were served by electricity. That year, the national Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was created to promote the formation of non-profit farm cooperatives to bring electric power to rural homes. Low interest federal loans were made available to fund installation of the power lines.

Although the Hanford region realized many advantages from the national programs of the Depression era, the most reaching impacts were produced by construction of Grand Coulee Dam. It provided enormous electrical power generation and fostered reclamation efforts such as the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project just after World War II. Its first benefits to the Hanford Site area were jobs. Water began to be retained in the partially completed reservoir (Lake Roosevelt) behind Grand Coulee Dam in 1939, and the first power was delivered out of the huge generators in October 1941. Bonneville Dam was completed and started electrical generation in 1938. In 1940, the Midway Substation, located just upstream from Vernita on the northwest edge of the Hanford Site, was built for the mammoth Bonneville-Grand Coulee power lines (Parker 1979: 350-51; Lavender 1958: 443).

At the same time that the Grand Coulee Dam was being built, Hanford residents pushed for the development of a port system and the construction of additional dams in their area. When the federal government failed to step in and establish a Columbia River Authority, similar to the Tennessee Valley Authority, local communities formed the Inland Waterways Association and leaders in the Hanford Site area pushed for construction of a dam at Umatilla Rapids. The Army Corps of Engineers surveyed the site in July 1938 but funds already had been committed to the John Day Dam and Congress denied funding for the Umatilla Rapids Dam (Parker 1986: 302-03, 320-34; Parker 1979: 321, 341).

Although agriculture dominated the Hanford Site area in the years prior to the creation of the Hanford Engineer Works, the discovery of natural gas underneath the Rattlesnake Hills resulted in much drilling activity. By 1930, four companies were still actively searching for gas, and a small settlement known as Gas Wells was in place. Rumors of big oil discoveries abounded, especially in 1930 when Shell Oil Company sent representatives to lease land and investigate the Rattlesnake Hills (Harris 1972: 277).

The Northern Pacific Railroad continued to boost settlement and "homesteading" in the Hanford Site area throughout the 1930s and held festive promotional picnics in Pasco and other locations. Between 1931 and 1937, about 488 midwest farm families and others bought irrigated farms through the railway's land agent (Van Arsdol 1958: 31-36; Oberst and Smith 1983: 59-64). Land colonizers also came as part of the overall migration out of the midwestern "dustbowl," in response to advertising and personal initiative. In 1939, after two years of extensive investigation of irrigated farmlands from Texas to the Pacific Northwest, a group of Mormon families chose the Hanford-White Bluffs district for permanent settlement (Parker 1979: 352). There was still abundant non-irrigated land in the Hanford Site area and in 1938, some 20,000 sheep from Kittitas and Yakima Counties wintered either on or near the Hanford Site at Gable Mountain, near Priest Rapids, and between Vernita and White Bluffs (Parker 1979: 276, 341). Between the World Wars, there were few changes made to the reclamation systems in the Hanford Site area and no new major irrigation projects were constructed.

4.4.8 Summary

The first Euro-Americans who came into the Hanford region were Lewis and Clark who were soon followed by fur trappers, military units, and miners passing through on river passageways on their way to more productive lands and across the Columbia Basin. It was not until the 1860s that merchants set up stores, a freight depot, and the ferry at White Bluffs on the Hanford Reach. Chinese miners began to work the gravel bars for gold, cattle ranches were established in the 1880s, and farmers, the railroads, and extensive irrigation followed soon after. Several small, thriving towns, including Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland, grew up along the riverbanks in the early 20th century. Other ferries were established at Wahluke and Richmond. The towns and almost all the other structures were razed after the government acquired the land for the Hanford Engineer Works in 1943 (cf. Chatters 1989, ERTEC 1981, Rice 1980, and Cushing 1995). Thus, much of the pre-Hanford historic record is archaeological in nature.

4.5 Associated Property Types

4.5.1 Introduction

As with the Indians who lived alongside the life-giving Columbia and Yakima Rivers, the recently-arrived Euro-Americans settlers located their ranches and farms adjacent to these important water ways and harnessed their flows to irrigate the arid soils to grow a wide variety of cash crops. Like the Indians whose occupation left behind a rich array of physical remains that attest to their occupation and use of the Hanford Site for thousands of years, the Euro-Americans, in a relatively few decades, left behind ample physical evidence of their activities (farms, ranches, towns, roads, canals, fields, etc.). With the evacuation of all civilians (Indians and whites) from the area in 1943, and the subsequent removal of much of the standing structures erected by the Euro-Americans, the Hanford Site became, almost overnight, a large archaeological district. This section describes the physical remains (e.g., property types) that pertain to Euro-American resettlement of the Hanford Site area.

Archaeological resources from the pre-Hanford Site period are scattered over the entire Hanford Site and include numerous areas of gold mine tailings along riverbanks of the Columbia and the remains of homesteads, agricultural fields, ranches, and irrigation-related features. At present, 224 historic archaeological sites and numerous historic properties have been recorded which are associated with the pre-Hanford Site era (Cushing 1995).

Properties from the pre-Hanford Site era include semi-subterranean structures near McGee Ranch, the Hanford Irrigation and Power Companys pumping plant at Coyote Rapids, the Hanford Irrigation Ditch, the Hanford town site, pumping plant and high school, Wahluke Ferry, the White Bluffs town site and bank, the Richmond Ferry, Arrowsmith town site, a cabin at East White Bluffs ferry landing, the White Bluffs road, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad (Priest Rapids-Hanford Line) and associated whistle stops, and Bruggemans fruit warehouse (Rice 1980). Historic archaeological sites including an assortment of farmsteads, corrals, and dumps, have been recorded by the Hanford Cultural Resource Laboratory (HCRL) since 1987. In 1995, large-scale surveys of the 100 and 200 Areas by crews from Washington State University, under contract to HCRL, has resulted in the recordation of many more historic archaeological sites. ERTEC Northwest conducted some minor test excavations at some of the historic sites, including the Hanford town site (Cushing 1995).

In the 100 B and 100 C Areas, the remains of Haven Station, a small stop on the former Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad line is located west of the reactor compound. The remains of the small community of Haven lie on the opposite bank of the Columbia River. In the 100 D and 100 DR Areas, there are many sites representing Euro-American settlement activities. The former community of Wahluke, which was at the landing of a ferry of the same name, is also situated on the rivers north bank. In the 100 F Area, four historic period sites were discovered during surveys in 1991. The principal historic archaeological site in the vicinity is the East White Bluffs ferry landing and former townsite.

The East White Bluffs ferry landing is located on the east bank of the Columbia River and was formerly the upriver terminus of shipping during the early and mid-19th century. It was at this point that supplies for trappers, traders, and miners were off-loaded, and commodities from the interior were transferred from pack trains and wagons to river boats. The first store and ferry of the mid-Columbia were located there. A log cabin, thought by some to have been a blacksmith shop in the mid-19th century, still stands there. Test excavations were conducted at the cabin by the University of Idaho and the structure has been recorded to Historic American Buildings Survey standards (Rice 1976). The only remaining structure associated with the White Bluffs townsite (near the railroad) is the White Bluffs Bank (Cushing 1995).

In the 100 H Area are 14 historic sites that were recorded during 1992 and 1993 and include 20th century farmsteads, household dumps, and military encampments. Littering the area around the 100 K Area are historic sites containing the remains of farms. Four historic sites and three isolated finds have been recorded as of 1994. Two important linear features, the Hanford Irrigation Ditch and the former Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul railroad, are also present in the 100 K Area. Remnants of the Allard whistle stop and the Allard Pumphouse at Coyote Rapids are located west of the K reactor compound. The most common evidence of historic activities now found near the 100 N Area consists of gold mine tailings on riverbanks and historic archaeological sites where farmsteads once stood.

In the 200 Areas, the only evaluated historic site is the former White Bluffs freight road that crosses diagonally through the 200 West Area. The road, which was formerly an Indian trail, has been in continuous use since antiquity and has played a role in Euro-American immigration, development, agriculture, and the Hanford Site operations. This property has been determined to be eligible for listing in the National Register although a segment passing through the 200 West Area is a non-contributing element.

Only one historic site, a trash scatter, has been recorded in the 300 Area, but within 2 km (1.2 miles) of the 300 Area fence are nine historic sites. They consists mostly of debris scatters and road beds associated with farmsteads. Several more historic sites may be expected in this outlying area (Cushing 1995). Historic cultural resources have been identified in or near the 1100 Area and these consist mostly of farmsteads, homesteads, and agricultural structures predating the Hanford Site. No pre-Hanford Site historic properties have been recorded in the 3000 Area but farmsteads and remnants of the former North Richland town site may be found there (Cushing 1995).

4.5.2 Property Types - Definitions

Hardesty (1982: 209-210) proposed that the expected archaeological sites resulting from farming or ranching activities would fall into five general classes of features: management, manufacturing, environmental impact, domestic, and logistic.

Management features are those originating in the human activities used to create and maintain farming/ranching ecosystems. These include water management (irrigation canals, reservoirs, dams, and other works to control/distribute water to farm/ranch ecosystems), animal husbandry (barns, corrals, branding stations, fences and other sites directly related to the management of cattle, sheep, horses, and other animals), and managed habitats (cultivated fields or other archaeologically visible effects of farming/ranching activities).

Manufacturing features are those originating in the human activities used to supply materials and energy to farming/ranching operations. These include blacksmithing sites and kilns (brick, lime, and other kiln sites used in the manufacture of construction or fertilizer materials).

Environmental impact features are those originating in environmental responses to farming/ranching operations. These include erosion (gullies), salt deposits (areas of salt buildup in soils caused by irrigation with poor drainage - not a problem at Hanford), and habitats with vegetation shifts (areas where native vegetation has been changed due to farming/ranching activities).

Domestic features are those originating in domestic activities and include permanent habitation (household dwellings, fruit cellars, outhouses, and other archaeologically visible evidence of year-round domestic activities) and temporary habitation (camp sites associated with cattle drives, sheep herding, and other temporary farming/ranching activities).

Logistic features originate from human activities used for importing and exporting materials, energy, and information. These include transportation corridors (railroads, overland trails, waterways, and other routes used to transport goods and services), shipping stations (stockyards, grain elevators, and other sites on transportation corridors used to receive and ship ranching and farming products; also includes telegraph stations as points to receive and send information), and maintenance (railroad yards, toll stations, and other sites used to maintain transportation routes).

In a later study, Hardesty (1986: 20-23) explored the historical development of farming and ranching in Nevada, an arid landscape like Hanford that challenged Euro-American settlement. At first, small farmers sold hay, meat, and butter to passing emigrants in the 1850s. Later, a hay culture (cf. Townley 1983: 115) emerged in places to cater to the mining boomtowns or pivotal positions in the transportation network. Farmers cut wild stands of grass on the valley floors and sold it to the teamsters supplying large towns as feed for oxen, mules, horses and other animals. Once the railroads ended some of the demand for animal power, the hay culture continued to thrive by focusing on the feedlot industry. Later, introduction of alfalfa, land reclamation techniques, fertilization, and irrigation created a new foundation. Ranching was another farming pattern that boomed with the arrival of the transcontinental railroad (Hardesty 1986: 22). Cattle and sheep were raised to a marketable age on the range, driven to railheads for feedlot fattening, and shipped by boxcar to market. By the 1890s, severe winters, overgrazing, and market saturation forced many ranchers out of business. In the early 20th century, a new ranching pattern emerged, dominated by a few very large operations. Shepherding had a similar parallel history where herders, like cattlemen, followed a transhumance pattern as they moved their stock from winter to summer ranges. Herders also took advantage of the railheads to ship their stock to market.

Hardesty (1986) listed several themes (Transportation, Farming, and Settlement) and associated property types relevant to the historical development of farming and ranching in Nevada; several of which may be applicable to the Hanford Site.

MAJOR THEME: TRANSPORTATION
Property Types
Railway Systems
Subtypes
Grades Rails/ties
Trestles/bridges Section houses
Roundhouses Rolling rips Terminals
Hangers Beacons
Water Systems
Subtypes
Ferry landings/docks Watercraft
Warehouses Cable supports
MAJOR THEME: FARMING
Property Types
Haying Systems
Subtypes
Storage buildings Harvesting tools
Transportation vehicles (wagons) Fields
Fences Hay forks
Irrigation systems
Subtypes
Dams/reservoirs Pumphouses
Fields/fences Salt deposits
Erosion features Ditches/gates
Flumes Siphons
Pipe (wood, metal, concrete)
Domestic animal husbandry systems
Subtypes
Corrals/fences Stables
Feed storage Faunal remains
Barns Slaughter house
MAJOR THEME: SETTLEMENT
Property Types
Isolated house systems
Subtypes
Building features Disposal features
Water supply features Storage features
Heating features
Ranching systems
Subtypes
Household features Animal management features
Water supply features Food storage features

Another useful model of potential property types at the Hanford Site is the Agricultural Study Unit prepared by Lindeman and Williams (1985) as part of the Resource Protection Planning Process (RP3) conducted by the Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation for the State of Washington. Lindeman and Williams (1985) study unit was designed to help better identify, evaluate, and protect agricultural resources within the state of Washington. They outlined several main themes (General Farming, Livestock, Crops, and Ethnic Properties) and subthemes with associated resource types.

Under their theme of General Farming, the subtheme of Diversified Farm-Pioneer Subsistence may be applicable to the Hanford Site. As Lindeman and Williams (1985: 16) observed, frontier farmsteads were the typical residences of Washingtons early pioneers. The first settlers raised grain, fruit, vegetables, hay, and livestock primarily for home provisioning and personal consumption. Markets for cash crops were extremely limited or nonexistent. Frontier subsistence farming prevailed only until the 1870s and early 1880s in most of Washington but lingered on into the 20th century in certain rugged or isolated localities.

The following subtheme is Diversified Farm-Market Production. As Lindeman and Williams (1985: 17) pointed out, it was not until the 1880s and the coming of the transcontinental railroads that the Pacific Northwest was finally, and effectively, linked into the vast national and international agricultural market. As a result, all types of agriculture in Washington developed and expanded at a tremendous rate. Thousands of individual farmers, many of whom were foreign immigrants, produced a combination of salable agricultural products on their farms (grains, vegetables, fruits, livestock, and dairy products). In one respect, this farming style continued the earlier pattern. This great expansion of agriculture caused a corresponding increase in the types, numbers, and sizes of structures found on the farm, and encouraged the adoption of technologically advanced materials, equipment, and machines. Rustic frontier architecture was quickly replaced by modern board and frame styles. The diversified farm, producing several kinds of agricultural products, remained common into the early decades of the 20th century. By the 1940s, however, such farms had all but disappeared in that form, largely due to modern marketplace pressures which forced farmers to specialize in just one kind of agricultural activity. The 1943 government takeover effectively erased diversified farming from the Hanford Site and its immediate vicinity. Property types associated with General Farming are presented below.

MAJOR THEME: GENERAL FARMING
Subthemes
Diversified Farm - Pioneer Subsistence (1792-1870s/1880s)
Resource Types
Farmstead (Homesteads) Ranch House Cabin
Small Barn Garden Granary Root Cellar
Diversified Farm, Market Production (1880s-1940s)
Resource Types
Homestead or Farm Garage Ranch Livery Stable
Round-Polygonal Barn Icehouse Garden Milk House
Chicken Coop & Brooder House Windmill Barn Pumphouse
Ramp and Chute Granary Grain Crib Orchard
Machine Shed Shop Root Cellar Outhouse
Bee Hives and Platform Stock Trough Fuel Tank Smokehouse
Portable Colony Pig House Hay Derrick Woodshed Utility Building
Livestock Shed Silo Scale House Tank for Chemical Fertilizers
Cistern House

Under their theme of Livestock, the subtheme of Commercial Dairying may be applicable to the Hanford Site. As Lindeman and Williams (1985: 20) observed, a dairy farm is where retail or wholesale milk and other milk products are derived from a herd of dairy cattle, which are segregated from other livestock. Traditionally, the commercial dairy operation had some 30-80 cows and might have had breeding stock as well. Dairying occupied an important role in Washingtons agricultural history since the late 19th century.

The subthemes Cattle Ranching-Open Range Phase and Cattle Ranching-Enclosed Grazing are applicable to the Hanford Site. In the mid-19th century, the open range cattle industry quickly shifted to, and greatly expanded in, central and eastern Washington, particularly after the conclusion of hostilities with the local Indian tribes in 1858 (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 21). After the close of most of the open range in the mid to late 1880s, cattle ranching remained an extensive, but largely sedentary pursuit. As pasturage shrank and was fenced in, ranchers increasingly had to rely on grain to feed stock instead of depending solely on natural grass as formerly. Consequently, larger and more numerous structures were required on cattle ranches. Modern frame buildings supplanted rustic log cabins and outbuildings of earlier times (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 22).

Horse Raising (theme) properties are relatively rare (cf. Lindeman and Williams 1985: 23). Indians and white frontiersmen bred and traded horses early in the 19th century. Later, commercial horse ranching developed alongside the open range cattle industry, particularly in central and eastern Washington from the late 1850s to 1880s. The expansion of large-scale farming in the mid to late 1880s eventually eliminated most of the open range. Some horse herds continued to run free in marginal or nonarable localities of central Washington such as the Horse Heaven Hills and on the expansive Yakama Indian Reservation. Some horse ranches did not depend on the open range but instead had permanent fenced enclosures.

Sheep Raising, by the mid-19th century, shifted from western Washington to the channeled scablands, sagebrush plains, canyon, plateaus, and mountains of central and eastern Washington. This industry thrived for many decades but by the 1940s, a world-wide drop in demand for wool had greatly reduced the number of herds. Structures built at a sheep ranch headquarters typically were of a functional and low-cost design. Sheep ranches are not exceptionally numerous and sheep driveways and camps often are ephemeral features. Only one to two hundred properties in Washington might be classified in this subtheme (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 23).

Small Animal Husbandry (theme) properties include buildings standing on poultry or swine farms that were simply constructed and strictly functional in design. Occasionally, however, poultry and swine houses did exhibit some decorative styling such as ornamental cupola ventilators, rows of windows, shingled siding, and boxed cornices. Property types associated with Livestock are presented below.

MAJOR THEME: LIVESTOCK
Subthemes
Commercial Dairying (1880s - 1943)
Resource Types
Homestead or Farm Fence Dairy Barn Silo
Milk Cool ing Tank Milk House Open Shed House Refrigeration Equipment
Corral
Cattle Ranching, Open Range Phase (1850s - 1880s)
Resource Types Homestead or Farm Shed Ranch
Cattle Trail Spring or Cistern Cabin Corral
Cow Camp
Cattle Ranching, Enclosed Grazing (1880s - 1943)
Resource Types Homestead or Farm Cistern Ranch
Water Trough Cattle Barn Bullpen Ranch House
Open Shed Corral and Fencing Calving Shed Feed Storage
Windmill Loading Ramp and Chute Pole Barn Feed Lot
Horse Raising (early 1800s - 1943)
Resource Types Homestead or Farm Windmill Ranch
Cistern Horse Barn Hay Derrick Livery Stable
Fencing Blacksmith Shop Camp Shed
Cabin Loading Ramp Spring Corral
House
Sheep Raising (1850s - 1943)
Resource Types Sheep Barn Cistern Lambing Shed
Water Trough Open Shearing Shed Dipping Vat Cookhouse
Corral Bunkhouse Sheep Camp Feed Lot
Windmill
Small Animal Husbandry (early 1800s - 1943)
Resource Types Poultry House Pen Swine House
Bee Hive Portable Colony Hog House Granary House
Farm Farrowing Barn Grain Crib/Bin Shed

Under their theme of Crops, some of Lindeman and Williams (1985) subthemes are applicable to the Hanford Site. Grain Production has always been important in Washington and wheat production increased dramatically east of the Cascades during the late 1870s when farmers learned that steep and neglected hillsides could be farmed using dryland cultivation techniques. Previous efforts to grow grain were restricted to moist bottomlands. The new dryland farming methods entailed deep initial plowing, followed by frequent cultivation to retard moisture loss by capillary action. The inception of dryland farming, which was associated with the coming of the railroads and the opening of new markets, was a catalyst for the tremendous growth of Washingtons grain industry (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 25).

Wheat farming was popular since it required little manpower to operate a wheat ranch, except at harvest time when large numbers of men and animals were needed. Wheat was durable and of relatively low bulk, which made for cost-effective handling, shipping, and storage. It was also in wide demand throughout national and world markets. In the early 1800s, the flail and other premechanized techniques were used by early settlers to harvest wheat. Hence, commercial grain production in Washington has nearly always been mechanized (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 25). Prior to 1890, Washington farmers used horses and mules to pull reapers, binders, and headers, which cut the grain; horse- or steam-powered stationary threshers were used to separate the grain kernels from the chaff and stalks. By the turn of the century, new mobile horse- and mule-drawn combine harvesters were extensively used to cut and thresh the crop, though some farmers still used binders, headers, and stationary threshers. Harvesting was labor intensive - the operation of a single combine required 24 to 36 horses or mules and three to five men, not including support animals and men in auxiliary positions. Up until the 1930s, wheat was stored and transported in gunnysacks. By the 1930s, low wheat prices and the high cost of labor led to the bulk handling of grain (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 26).

Toward the end of the historic context period - the 1930s and early 1940s, the development of tractor-drawn equipment was associated with a shift from bagged to bulk handling of grain. This development revolutionized the wheat industry by speeding up the harvesting process and cutting down on labor. It also dramatically changed the appearance of the farmstead. Large horse and mule barns were no longer needed, and consequently, many were torn down or altered into machine sheds or shops. Corrals and fences likewise disappeared and other outbuildings used by livestock were eliminated or rebuilt for other use. Metal-sided pole barns, open sheds, and other modern prefabricated structures were erected for the new machinery. Acreage per farm increased since farmers could now cultivate more land with less effort. Ranches expanded and absorbed other farmsteads and consolidated them into larger entities (and removed excess structures).

Horticulture involves the cultivation and management of fruit and nut orchards, vineyards, cranberry bogs, and gardens on a small or large scale, and usually for commercial purposes. Lindeman and Williams (1985: 28) noted that fur traders, missionaries, Indians, and frontiersmen planted Washingtons first fruit trees, grapevines, and vegetables during the early decades of the 19th century and American settlers further developed and expanded horticultural operations in the mid-1800s. The fruit industry did not become truly important until late in the 19th century, when all agricultural activity in the state was expanding at a tremendous rate. Large-scale irrigation projects and a progressive marketing network were developed in central/southcentral Washington (and the Hanford Site) that eventually made eastern Washington the leader in fruit production.

Irrigation is an important subtheme for the Hanford Site. Irrigation works consist of dams of all sizes constructed of earth, stone, or concrete; and the smallest dams/headgates were often of wood. Box-like pumping stations were located along earthen or concrete canals to distribute water to fields or other canals. Pumping stations often consisted of concrete and had electrically operated pumps. Siphons were composed of metal pipes or iron-banded wooden pipelines (penstock) were used to distribute water. Small ditches, flumes, and sometimes waterwheels were the last links to a farmers field in any irrigation system, regardless of size (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 30). Property types associated with Crops are presented below.

Berry Field
MAJOR THEME: CROPS
Subthemes
Grain Production (early 1880s - 1943)
Resource Types
Homestead or Farm House Ranch Pole Barn
Grain Dryer Windmill Cistern Shop
Barn (Horse and Mule Barn) Machine Shed Tank House Granary
Grain Elevator Fuel Tank Grain Chute
Pipeline Icehouse Tramway Smokehouse
Garage
Horticulture (early 1880s - 1943)
Resource Types
House Machine Shed Orchard Storage Building
Prune Dryer Icehouse Vineyard Irrigation Works
Grapevine Garage Cranberry Bog Shop
Tram Railway Barn Farmstead Vegetable Field
Refrigeration Facility
Irrigation and Reclamation (1880s-1943)
Resource Types
Power Station Dam Headworks Tank House
Pumping Station Siphon Waterwheel Windmill
Flume Dike Raceway Tunnel
Canal Ditch Farm Drainage Ditch

Migrant camps were located in areas where seasonal, labor-intensive fruit and vegetable crops were harvested (i.e., apples, hops, asparagus, cherries, etc.). Thus, most migrant camps were common in the irrigated central part of Washington, particularly in the Yakima Valley. Migrant housing typically was functional, low-cost, and had little, if any decorative styling. The camps usually consisted of small, one or two room cabins, or long single-story apartment-like structures, chiefly of board and frame or concrete block construction. Outbuildings associated with the camps were few but there may have been outhouses and storage sheds. Older buildings may not have had plumbing. Migrant camps were often quickly dismantled when no longer needed.

Truck farming cannot be specifically tied to any one ethnic group. Nevertheless, Italian or Japanese descendants operated small, intensively-managed vegetable farms in Washington (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 32). Commercial truck gardens were most often located near large urban centers which provided both a local market and shipping outlets. Houses, barns, and other outbuildings on truck farms generally were nondescript and showed little, if any, ethnic influence. Japanese and Italian truck farms usually appeared to be identical to those operated by other Americans. Barns, if present, are often small and served to shelter farm implements and two or three work animals. Garages for delivery trucks became common in the 20th century. The most common feature of a truck garden was its small size (usually less than 100 acres). They had few outbuildings and the fields were intensively cultivated which gave the farms a well-manicured appearance. Equipment sheds were common, but storage buildings were less common because fresh produce had to hauled to market as quickly as possible (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 32). Property types associated with Ethnic Properties are presented below.

MAJOR THEME: ETHNIC PROPERTIES (late 1800s-1943)
Subthemes
Migrant Camps
Resource Types
Cabin (Housing) Outbuilding
Truck Farming
Resource Types
Truck Garden Garage Field Tank House House
Barn Site Fuel Tank Irrigation System
Machine Shed Storage Shed

Buildings associated with ranching and farming can be quite variable. Although ranching operations predominated in the Hanford vicinity prior to the arrival of farmers, once the era of the open range had ended, farming became the predominant economic activity in the area, particularly once irrigation systems were developed. Ranchsteads and farmsteads generally include a large number of building types that reflect the fundamental differences between an economy focused on large-scale animal husbandry and one based on either large or small scale plant cultivation. Many farmers, though, practiced animal husbandry on some scale. While most farmers did not own large herds of cattle that grazed large land tracts, they often did own some barnyard animals (dairy cows, chickens, goats, etc.) and horses (prior to the widespread use of modern mechanized equipment). Thus, there can be and often are, striking similarities between ranchsteads and farmsteads in terms of the basic building types likely to be encountered. For example, both properties would have a main house or residence, perhaps a barn or two for draft animals, a tack shed, a corral, a well or pump house, and a root cellar. What is problematic at the Hanford Site is that the former ranchsteads and farmsteads were reduced to the status of archaeological sites over 50 years ago through deliberate razing by the Hanford Engineer Works in 1943 and by later Site-wide clean-up programs.

Brooks and Jacon (1994: 47-48) discussed the relative differences between farms and ranches. They suggest that the key difference between the farm and ranch property types is what the site produces. Farms typically produce row crops supplemented by limited livestock production, predominantly swine and poultry. Stock raising, primarily beef cattle and sheep, characterizes ranching. Farms and ranches possess physical features indicating permanence. Improvements can include additions to a claim era resource (see below), a permanent dwelling, individual outbuildings, fencing, shelterbelts, and irrigation evidence. Brooks and Jacon (1994: 47) noted that a farm or ranch is a unit which should be evaluated as such. Its overall site and yard arrangement are important, as are outbuildings and landscape features such as fences or orchards that contain valuable information about a site. One typical farm/ranch yard arrangement places the main house in the foreground with the outbuildings forming a courtyard toward the side and rear. Livestock operations would often be farther removed to reduce odor and contamination of ground water. Early 20th century agricultural experiment station bulletins advocated placement of barns 100-150 feet away from the main dwelling and placing the main buildings, particularly the dwelling and the barn, so that the prevailing winds blow at right angles to a line connecting these buildings (Brooks and Jacon 1994: 47). The rise of agricultural experimentation stations had much to do with repetition in farm/ranch yard arrangement and farm/ranch house architectural style and outbuilding design.

The following descriptions, adapted from Rowley (n.d.), Brooks and Jacon (1994), and Lindeman and Williams (1985) are useful for anticipating possible property types that would be associated with ranching and farming activities from the pre-Hanford era. These description can relate to both ranching or farming and are loosely organized as buildings associated with human habitations, animal husbandry, food production and storage, machinery and equipment, water management, power generation, and landscape features.

Buildings Associated with Human Habitation

Claim Era buildings, structures, and landscape features - In general, claim era resources are smaller and contain less detail and decorative finishes than more permanent residences (see Ranch House - below). A variety of inexpensive, locally available materials were often used for both construction (native stone, logs) and interior coverings/decoration (newspaper, whitewash). These were usually intended to be temporary structures until the settler possessed the materials and financial means to construct a more permanent dwelling. A claim era structure might contain physical evidence of the type of homestead method/legislation used in establishing the claim (cf. Panelli 1990: 7). For example, a shelter belt could represent a claim filed under the Timber Culture Act. Claim era buildings and structures might also include associated features (privy holes, root cellar remains/depression, wells, dumps, clustered settlement, evidence of plow animals and evidence of cultivated fields such as rock piles, non-native surface coverage, and machinery remains.

Dugouts - These are usually built into the side of a hill above the high water mark of any nearby water source and featured either a sod, stone or wooden facade. As a claim era property type, a dugout was probably a relatively inexpensive improvement.

Sodhouse - These claim era structures are not anticipated at Hanford since local soils were sandy and lacked the necessary clay component necessary to create adobe or sod like bricks.

Log Shack - These claim era structures were often made from notched logs. Since standing timber, such as cottonwood trees, were scarce in the vicinity of the Hanford Site, log shacks are not anticipated.

Stone House - These claim era structures were a more permanent alternative to sod where wood was not available or cost prohibitive. Window and door frames were often made of wood, however. As seen with Bruggermans Fruit Warehouse, construction with stone was carried out at the Hanford Site. Structural remains of other stone house structures might be anticipated at other locations within the Hanford Site.

Woodframe Shack - These claim era structures were at least 10 x 12 feet in size, as required by Federal legislation and tar paper was often used as an exterior covering (cf. Brooks and Jacon 1994: 46).

Ranch House/Farm House - This is the main dwelling within a ranch or farmstead where the ranch or farm-owning family generally resides. In terms of architectural style, this building would likely follow the general tastes of the period, in contrast to most other ranch-related building types that are more utilitarian in nature and therefore generally less stylish. The degree of success the ranch or farm had might very well be read in the quality of stylishness the main house displayed. Popular styles from the first quarter of the 20th century include the two story Foursquare with a hip or pyramid roof and the Bungalow. One typical vernacular form is an L shape building with the 1 1/2 or 2 story main block connected to a one story kitchen with the main entrance often through the kitchen rather than a formal front door. Farmhouses may contain a variety of additions built to house two and three generations of the same family, or a separate, second farmhouse may have been built to solve the space problem.

Ranch or farm houses were often added onto and modernized over time and will often consist of a series of additions that accumulate over time, with each section likely displaying its own period style. As a ranch or farm family grew, a second (or third) house might be constructed for later generations of the ranching family.

The work portions of a ranch or farm house (i.e., the kitchen, laundry room, etc.) were often so arranged that the wife could observe the farmyard, driveway, and nearby road or highway. Washing facilities frequently were situated inside the back entrance, since that doorway led to the barnyard and was most often used.

Bunkhouse - This is a common dwelling for a varying number of ranch hands and laborers. The structure would contain one or more rooms with some space normally provided for cooking, eating, sleeping and storing horsegear and equipment. Bunkhouses can be distinguished from non-residences from the inclusion of a wood stove and flue. Three main types are found across North America. The first is a single-pen type which is square or rectangular in plan with a gable roof and the entry in the long side. The second type is a variant of the single-pen with the plan turned. Both consist most often of a single-open room, although sometimes divided in two, and often utilizing single-wall construction (e.g., the walls are made rigid by the roof system and without vertical bracing). The third type is generally a 1 1/2 to 2 story structure built of stone. The first floor is often partially underground and used as a root cellar or meat room (commissary).

Commissary - This is a storehouse or a room within a large structure, devoted to the storage of equipment and/or supplies (in most cases, foodstuffs and sundries).

Cook House - The cook was often raised above the status of the general worker and as such was often assigned a separate residence; generally a one-room structure with no separate plumbing or kitchen facilities.

Summer Kitchens - Most summer kitchens are one story, rectangular plan structures attached to the rear or located a short distance from the farmhouse. Summer kitchens prevented the heat associated with cooking from entering the main house (Brooks and Jacon 1994: 70).

Foremans House - The foreman was often pre-eminent among workers and as such was almost always given a residence of his own that might include plumbing, if available.

Line Camp Cabin - Line Camp refers both to the site and the central structure dominating the site. Line camps were strategically located at long distances from the home ranch. Ranch hands bunked there for short periods while tending cattle. Small, often temporary, self-contained cabins or shacks were located somewhere on the open range to shelter the cowboys who rode the line in their journeys following or rounding up herds of cattle. These might consist of only a canvas tent, while more permanent examples could be built of masonry or wood.

Privy/Outhouse - This was an outdoor toilet that might stand independently or be attached to the side of a larger structure, such as a barn.

Schoolhouse - In many cases, a room in the main ranch house sufficed, but in other cases, a separate structure was built for the exclusive use of the ranchers children and perhaps some of the neighboring children.

Buildings and Structures Associated with Animal Husbandry

Barn - Although intended to serve a wide array of functions, barns generally shelter livestock and feed and are almost always the largest and most impressive structure of any ranchstead in terms of scale and size. The plan and arrangement of space within a barn can generally be associated with the cultural background of those who built it or had it built. Traditional barn-building methods usually survive much longer than methods associated with other property types. Like ranch houses, barns are often added onto a section at a time and become, over time, a whole series of connected structures. Bank barns are those built into a side of a hill. Catalog barns are those affordable and readily available after 1900 from such suppliers as Sears, Roebuck and Company of Chicago (Honor-Bilt), Crane-Johnson Company; Gordon VanTine Company; Rilco Laminated Products Company of St. Paul and the Radford Company (Brooks and Jacon 1994: 50). Several different barns might have been present in the area including such popular types as the Wisconsin Dairy Barn, the English/Three Bay Barn, gambrel barns, Gothic Arch barns, loafing barns, Transverse Frame Barn, and round or polygonal barns.

The General Purpose Barn is the most common kind found in Washington and all of the barn requirements of diversified farming could be met by this principal structure, which frequently was the most prominent and architecturally significant building on the farm. It usually housed grain, equipment, wagons or trucks, as well as stanchions and stalls for calves, sheep, hogs, or other animals. Horse stalls were usually half again as wide as cow stalls. Some barns might have had a harness room or workshop and a loft or mow for hay storage. These barns could be of varying size, usually 30 to 40 wide and 40 to 80 feet long, and of board and stud construction with dirt, board, or concrete floors. Sometimes they had stone foundations; masonry being more common in central and eastern Washington than west of the Cascades. Gambrel, high gable, and round or arch roofs were favored since they allowed storage of more hay (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 18).

The round or polygonal barn is extremely rare in Washington and if one ever existed within the Hanford Site, its archaeological remains would be important. Although no more than two or three dozen such barns exist in the state, they are of interest due to their unique architectural styling. Most were built in the 1910s when round and polygonal barns were widely touted in farm publications (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 18).

Farrowing Barn - In the wintertime, swine require warm, well-insulated housing. Swine houses and barns normally were of board and stud construction, stood one-story high, and had either a monitor, shed, half-monitor, combination, or low gable roof (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 25). Honor-Bilt and other manufacturers sold farrowing barns that were ideally suited to the needs of the brood sow. Early versions, around 1905, were often small teepee or A-frame shaped moveable structures. Slanting walls above an eight-foot square base afforded space to the newborn pigs but prevented the sow from accidentally rolling over them. Sometime during the late 1920s or early 1930s, an innovative designer created a structure which combined the advantages of the individual hog house with space for multiple brooders - the polygonal farrowing barn (cf. Brooks and Jacon 1994: 61).

Horse Barn - While not characterized by a specific style, barns designed exclusively for horses can be expected to be found on larger, relatively successful farms and ranches. These barns often contain more detail than other outbuildings and are the large showpiece of the farm or ranch yard. Since horses were the most expensive farm animals and the most susceptible to disease, they required clean, dry, well-ventilated, and relatively dust free quarters. On the outside, horse barns did not appear any different from many other barns. On the interior, however, the fixtures were rather unique. Horses are powerful, active, and restless animals that can cause much damage with kicks, gnawing, stomping, and pawing. Hence, all interior facilities had to be especially stout and solidly constructed with heavier gauge materials and no sharp edges to cause injury. Stalls were usually constructed along the outside walls, leaving the middle of the barn open for exercising the animals. Wood or concrete floors were considered to be more healthful than dirt floors. The horse barn also could contain brood mare stalls, isolated stalls for stallions, standing stalls for harness horses, and a carriage room. If it were a particularly large structure, it might have living quarters for grooms and stablemen (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 24).

Sheep Barn - Sheep are hardy animals with thick woolly hides, and, in the wintertime, only require to be kept dry and out of the wind to thrive. Thus, sheep barns were of light construction, strictly functional, and had a minimum of specialized features or equipment. They tended to be long, low structures, with shed, monitor, low gable, or combination roof lines. Less feed storage was required for sheep than other livestock; thus, lofts were usually smaller. Interior ceilings were frequently low for added warmth and the floors were earthen and/or concrete. A good sheep barn was well-lighted and ventilated with windows. Often, sheep barns included large pens, long feed boxes, smaller lambing pens or rooms, and doors to the loft (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 24).

Dairy Barn - Dairy barns usually contained two rows of cattle stalls with mangers and milking was done by hand. When large-scale rural electrification began in the 1930s, automatic milking machines became common and the stalls and mangers in many older barns were removed and replaced by modern run-through stanchions that stood at either side of newly dug pits in the barn floor (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 21). Electrification encouraged the acquisition of refrigeration equipment and modern cooling tanks. The dairy barn was often a massive structure that enclosed stalls, mangers, calf pens, grain bins, bull pens, and a feed room.

Cattle Barn - From the outside, a cattle barn often appeared little different from a dairy, or horse and mule barn. Inside however, cattle barns frequently were more open and did not have rows of stalls or stanchions, nor as many pens, as other types of barns (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 23).

Chicken/Turkey Houses/Pens - Lambing/Calving Sheds - These are structures built to shelter the seasonal birthing of livestock, particularly cattle and sheep. Brooder barns (for chickens) may have a rectangular, circular, or polygonal plan. Chicken coops are usually relatively small, one or one and a half story, rectangular wood frame buildings. Half monitor roofs were often used to increase sun exposure and air ventilation and air movement. Windows and doors are on the south side for maximum sun exposure. Floors were of either earth, wood, or concrete. Compared to other buildings, chicken coops have more openings for light and ventilation.

Silos - These are tall cylindrical structures built for the storage of fodder for livestock. Starting in the early 20th century, wood frame and wood stave silos came to be replaced by rot resistant hollow tile, steel, concrete, and concrete stave silos with conical, gambrel or domed roofs. Staves were usually bound with round steel hoops, steel bands or cable (Brooks and Jacon 1994: 68). These tower-like structures were common throughout Washington. Ideally, a silo was an airtight, watertight tank where green succulent herbage (silage) or grain or corn was stored. Silos stood above the ground or were partially or even totally buried underground. A pit silo was a hole in the earth in which silage was stored. Standing or above the ground silos were developed around 1875 and were first constructed in Washington at, or shortly after, the turn of the century (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 19). They ranged in size from about 8 feet in diameter (and less than 30 feet high) to 20 feet in diameter (60 feet high or taller). Round-shaped silos were stronger and required less material to construct. Silo foundations usually extended four to five feet below the surface.

Slaughter House - This is a building and/or structure for the slaughtering and processing of livestock. Although sited on a particular ranch, a single slaughter house might serve as a regional facility for a number of nearby ranches.

Fencing, Corralling, Loading/Squeeze Chutes - These are structures for confining livestock. Squeeze chutes are used for dehorning, branding, and other cattle treatment. Loading chutes will be located to facilitate easy pickup/delivery of livestock to the farm or ranch.

Livestock Dip - Livestock passed through deep, narrow tanks, often constructed of poured concrete for sanitary reasons, for cleaning and delousing purposes. A dip tank had to be sufficiently narrow so the animal could not turn around and deep enough so the animal would be force to swim, insuring the greatest degree of safe submersion. These structures were often located near a loading or squeeze entry chute (Brooks and Jacon 1994: 64-65).

Practice Bull - These structures are used to practice roping and may be constructed of a variety of materials and are usually located in or near the ranch yard.

Ranch Gates/Overthrows - Most of these structures are of simple wood construction consisting of two uprights and a cross piece. The name of the ranch or an object such as a horseshoe or skull may be displayed on the cross piece.

Temporary Houses/Seasonal Structures - Examples of this resource type may originally have been associated with early ranching operations that were largely mobile operations often headquartered in an established town. A variety of seasonal structures were used on large ranches and these structures should be expected in remote areas and many were used for housing purposes. Pioneer stockmen established small and widely scattered cow camps at convenient locations next to streams or springs. A typical open-range cow camp had a small cabin, a crude wood or stone corral, an outbuilding or shed, and little else. The cabin consisted of logs or hewn timbers, or perhaps was of board and batten construction. Cottonwoods or other riparian trees were the source of building materials. Cow camp structures were often covered with simple shed or gable roofs, composed of poles and boards, and perhaps sod, canvas, or split shingles (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 22).

Cattle Trails - Thousands of head of cattle roamed the bunchgrass-covered valleys and prairies of the Columbia Plateau and cattle trails were soon developed to drive herds to mining camps in the northern Rockies and British Columbia and by the late 1870s, cattle were headed eastward to stock the newly opened ranges of Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 22). A major cattle trail ran through the Hanford Site and terminated at the White Bluffs Ferry location where herds crossed and were driven to the gold fields of British Columbia.

Buildings and Structures Associated with Food Production and Storage

Apple House - For those ranches that included a sizable orchard, a structure devoted to housing equipment necessary for their care, harvest and processing might be built.

Cellar or Root Cellar - This is a storage facility for perishable food-stuffs (i.e., potatoes); sometimes built as a self-standing structure near the main house, other times directly underneath the main residence or bunkhouse. In either case, a substantial portion of the structure is generally subterranean or built into a hillside and commonly constructed of some sort of masonry (stone, brick or adobe) in order to provide maximum insulation. They often include only a single entry and in some cases a window. The interiors might include built-in wooden cabinetry and electrical lighting.

Granary/Grain Bin - This is a framed storehouse for threshed grain, in many cases with the framing exposed and the interior finished with horizontal boards (i.e., tongue and groove). The shape of a granary structure depends on how the grain is loaded into the structure. Although wood frame is the common building method, cribbed or stacked lumber is also used. Common features are a cube or rectangular plan, gable roof, double/single storage cribs, no windows and interior sheathing. Granaries are usually elevated on piers of stone or wood to protect the grain from vermin and moisture. Some early granaries feature steps on the gable end so grain sacks could be carried up and dumped; grain was removed through small chutes. Early granaries with a top load system that used a portable elevator had a small trap door just below the peak of the gable. Later examples were akin to grain elevators and may have an elevator leg and a conveyor belt with scoops - the elevator was often located near the center of the structure and a movable chute guided the grain to different bins when it reached the top of the conveyor. Other precursors to modern, true round, prefabricated examples are polygonal, wood-frame prefabricated models (Brooks and Jacon 1994: 63).

Granaries were subjected to tremendous strain, especially at the floor and near the bottom of the walls, thus, they were strongly built. The height of older granaries was seldom more than 12 feet, which was as high as a man could scoop grain, or dump it into a bin from wagons driven up on a rampway standing on posts. Modern conveyors, elevators, and other equipment, have made it possible to use bins standing 20, 30, or more feet high (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 26).

Grain Chutes, Pipelines, and Tramways - Wheat farmers on the Columbia Plateau utilized these ingenious devices to move grain down the steep, 2000-foot-deep walls of the Snake and Columbia rivers to steamboat landings and railroad sidings. With the exception of the White Bluffs themselves, the terrain adjacent to the Columbia River, within the Hanford Site, is much flatter. Nevertheless, these features might have been present somewhere within the Hanford Site at one time. Pipelines and wooden grain chutes, which could be thousands of feet long, were developed after 1879. More efficient devices, known as bucket trams and railway trams, soon were built. These allowed wheat to be transported in bags. Bucket trams were gravity-powered mechanisms consisting of sack-carrying buckets attached to long, steel cable suspended on poles or towers. A railway tram was a complicated cable and tram car system which rode on rails extended down steeply inclined canyon walls. In both cases, there generally was a flathouse and cabin for the workers at the top of the tram, and a warehouse, wharfboat, or railroad siding at the bottom. Trams were used until the early 1940s.

Milk House/Dairy - This is a structure devoted to the milking of cows and for the storage and processing of milk and milk products. Milkhouses are small, shed or gable roofed, one-story, rectangular plan structures located adjacent to or attached to a dairy barn. Early milkhouses were made of wood, but concrete and tile were used in later versions because of their ability to withstand the high moisture content of this building type. The interior of a milkhouse, most often featured a poured concrete floor and usually had areas for the cooling, storage, and washing of milk containers. Milkhouses may contain a raised door on an exterior wall for loading milk containers into a truck (Brooks and Jacon 1994: 65-66).

Smokehouse - This is a small building used to smoke/cure meat, meat products, and sometimes fruit and vegetables. They are usually one story, rectangular in plan, gable or semicircular roofed, windowless, masonry (or wood) structures with a door in the gable end and some vent openings in the masonry.

Icehouse - Some farms had icehouses to preserve dairy products, fruits, vegetables, and other produce. Icehouses were usually small structures constructed in a variety of styles and frequently had a simple gable or hip roof topped by a ventilator cupola. A large doorway facilitated movement of ice or produce in and out of the structure. These structures were often built of wood, with horizontal board or shingle siding, but brick, stone, or concrete also was used. These structures were often built aboveground, or partially or wholly underground. Aboveground structures were the most common since no excavation was required in their construction and drainage and insulation was more efficient. Sawdust was often used as floor and/or wall insulation and icehouses were usually constructed in shady locations with a northern exposure (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 20). While natural ice from rivers, lakes, and streams could be gathered and stored, in locations such as the Hanford Site, commercially produced ice was used. A ton of ice occupied 35 cubic feet and four or five tons was adequate to supply the needs of a typical farm family.

Buildings and Structures Associated with Machinery and Equipment

Garage/Carriage Houses - These can be small individual structures built to house an automobile or truck or might be barns converted to garages. In some instances it might include a work area for vehicle maintenance.

Sheds/Storage Buildings - These are structures built in a variety of forms, primarily intended to serve as storage or shelter for machinery and/or livestock or feed. These structures typically housed a grain grinder, wagon, buggy, binder, mower, plow, harrow, rake, drill, cultivator, combine, or other horse-or tractor-drawn equipment. The machine shed usually was of simple board frame construction, stood one-story high, had a gable or shed roof, and possibly included a small shop at one end. Doorways and openings were sufficiently wide to allow the removal and return of implements, and the interior was clear of vertical posts. Gradually inclining ramps leading to the main doors facilitated machinery movement (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 27).

Smithy - This is a structure that is sometimes enclosed or open-air that included a furnace and work area for the smithing and repair of metal ranch equipment.

Shops - Expect these buildings to be simple, rectangular plan, one or one and a half story buildings located close to the main machinery storage building or main barn. Shops are usually of simple design, one-story high, and built to retain heat for use in the wintertime, but with sufficient windows for proper lighting. Often, the original farmstead building (possibly a claim-era structure), a former stable, or some other older structure was converted into a shop. Farm buildings consistently have been readapted to one use or another. A shop might have contained metal working equipment, a grinder, emery wheel, and wood working tools, etc. (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 20).

Power/Battery Plant House - These are small buildings located a short distance from the main house in the farm or ranch yard. The generator or battery plant may be located on a raised platform to protect it from moisture.

Buildings and Structures Associated with Water Management

Dams, Pumping Stations, Ditches, and Flumes - Irrigation works, whether large or small, public or private, or developed by an individual or large organization, were many and varied (Lindeman and Williams 1985: 30). Dams of all sizes were built of earth, stone, or concrete. The smallest dams and headgates also might consist of wood. Box-like pumping stations were located along earthen or concrete canals to distribute water to fields or other canals. These pumping stations often consisted of concrete and had electrical equipment to operate pumps. Siphons were composed of metal pipes or iron-banded wooden pipelines and were used to distribute water. Small ditches, flumes, and waterwheels were the last links to a farmers field.

Pumphouse - This is often a small structure meant to house the machinery involved with delivering water to other areas of a ranch or farm. They are frequently located at the base of a windmill and housed the pump and associated windmill machinery. Pumphouses are usually small, one story, square or rectangular plan buildings. The windmill may rise directly over the pumphouse and pumphouse floors are usually poured concrete so the pump can be bolted firmly into place. The floor slopes away from the raised platform upon which the pump rests to promote drainage. Pumphouses containing power pumps will be insulated and may contain heating equipment to prevent freezing (Brooks and Jacon 1994: 66). When the pump was used for irrigation, the pump was often located at the highest point of the land from which water may be conveyed economically through ditches to all parts of a field, unless conveyed through pipelines.

Spring or Well House - Springhouses are usually small, rectangular or square plan gable roof buildings to keep animals and plants away from the water and to provide a cool place to store foodstuff, especially dairy products. Stone or brick construction provided the coolest environment. The springhouse was generally located at the base of the slope where the spring issued from the ground. In order to capture the flow of water, the building often was excavated into the hillside. Many of these buildings contained troughs or berms to create pools for the water to collect in. Some springhouses may also have been used as wash houses. Springboxes are smaller, primarily underground structures for collecting and protecting springwater. They are usually made of concrete and extend 4 feet deep, 3 feet wide, and about 1 foot above the ground surface (Brooks and Jacon 1994: 69-70).

Water Tank/Tankhouse - This is usually a two-story tall structure designed to store water. The domestic tankhouse is tied to the evolution of the American farm windmill since the most natural and logical extension of the farm windmill was an elevated storage tank to hold the water pumped by the windmill. Development of the suction and force pump (a positive force plunger pump capable of pumping water above the level of the pump) and the railroad practice of storing water in elevated tanks are factors that contributed to the rise of the tankhouse as a common farm feature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Brooks and Jacon 1994: 71).

Cistern - These are circular or rectangular underground structures designed to screen and store water runoff from building roofs or wells. Cisterns usually have concrete or stone walls that may angle inward at the top to form a bottle neck and a wooden or concrete lid. They can be built in the top of a hill near the buildings or beside the house to catch water from the roof. Late 19th and early 20th century houses may have cisterns located in the cellar with an eave and gutter downspout collection system.

Well/Well Pit - Well types vary based on equipment and peoplepower available at the time of construction, subsurface composition (rock, soil, sand) and the watertable depth. Ideally, wells are located uphill and far away from potential sources of contamination such as cesspools and privies. Earliest wells and wells associated with claim era resources were often hand dug and have a bucket or hand pump since hand digging was the least expensive and simplest method available. These wells are usually lined or cased with brick, stone, tile, or concrete. Other methods of constructing a well are boring, driving, jetting and drilling (cf. Brooks and Jacon 1994: 72). With the exception of artesian wells, all wells require a pump to raise water. A power pump may be located above ground in a pumphouse or below ground in a well pit to prevent freezing. Well pits are underground structures usually lined with concrete and may contain a pressure tank unit in addition to the pump.

Windmills - Windmills were originally used to pump water and later to generate electricity. Wooden windmills typically predate metal models and different manufacturers used different forms and styles.

Landscape Features

Canals and Irrigation Ditches - A series or network of channels that carry water from a reservoir, natural watercourse (river/stream), or from an artesian well; sometimes concrete lined, sometimes simply dug out from the ground.

Cemeteries - Often, ranch or farm families would establish a family plot, generally not far from the main house.

Corral - This is a circular open-air structure, consisting primarily of fencing, to confine livestock (cattle and horses). The structure can vary in materials from easily-found tree trunks to dimensioned lumber.

Headgate - An in-water structure for controlling the flow of water at the head of a canal or ditch.

Fencing - Fencing that defines the perimeter of a main house is generally more ornate and decorative than the fencing that defines the outer borders of the ranch itself. Fencing other than that immediately surrounding a main house would most likely be one of several varieties of barbed wire, in areas where such manufactured materials are available. In many areas, further from an immediate source of supply, locally found materials were used (stone, willow branches, greasewood, etc.).

Hay Derrick - This is a wooden structure used to lift loose or baled hay into piles.

Gazebo - This is an open-air frame structure, often six- or eight-sided, placed in a landscaped setting or garden, meant to shelter out-door recreational activities.

Grape Arbors - These are stakes or lattice structures designed to control the growth of grape vines.

Orchard - This is a grouping of fruit and nut trees, generally planted near the main ranch house. Some might have been commercial in nature while others might have been only to supply the needs of those on the ranch.

Ovens - These were built of masonry and served as outdoor baking ovens. They were situated outdoors to prevent the house from overheating.

Overthrow - This is a simple trabeated or arched structure spanning the main entrance road to a ranch. Built of either wood or masonry, the name of the ranch is often boldly included in an arch or lintel that carries over the roadway.

Windbreaks - Tall deciduous trees planted along the windward side of a ranchstead in order to break and divert the prevailing winds before reaching the ranchs dwellings and thereby helping protect its residents. A great many windbreaks were the result of a New Deal program in the 1930s that specifically subsidized tree-planting for just such a purpose.

Several property types are defined below, and methodologies to evaluate historic properties are suggested as well. Time periods, historic themes, associated property types, required condition or character and eligible properties are summarized below (in Table 1).

TABLE 1

INVENTORY OF EURO-AMERICAN PERIOD HISTORIC CONTEXTS, PROPERTY TYPES AND NATIONAL REGISTER PROPERTIES AT HANFORD: 1805/1806-1943

TIME PERIOD

THEME

PROPERTY

TYPE

REQUIRED

CONDITION

AND

CHARACTER

ELIGIBLE

PROPERTIES

1805-1855

Exploration

None expected

None expected

Fur Trade

Overnight camps

Small clusters of fur trade era artifacts in the absence of Indian artifacts

None determined

Missions

Temporary camps

None expected

Immigration

Wagon roads

Ruts following historically reported immigrant routes; must be perceptible

White Bluffs Road

1855-1860's

Indian-White Relations

Treaty sites

None expected

Skirmish sites

Locations where fighting or ambush took place

Rattlesnake Springs Archaeological District

1860's-1880's

Gold Mining

Mines or "gleanings"

Pits or piles of mine tailings, traces of sluicing operations along rivers/streams

None determined

Mining camps, Chinese

Domestic sites with food debris, artifacts made by Chinese, dwelling remains; archaeological, separable as distinct component

None determined

Mining camps, Whites

Same as above, but including predominantly Euro-American artifacts

None determined

1860's-1900

Cattle Business

Ranches

Sites with standing structures dating to this period, separated from mines, and lacking farm equipment; structure condition not critical; possibly ruins

None determined

Cow camps (seasonal camps or overnight camps)

Small scatters of food cans and other artifacts distant from river

None determined

Cattle drive routes

Routes distinguishable from maps or descriptions; some routes still visible

White Bluffs Road

Sheep Business

Seasonal camps or temporary camps

Small scatters of food cans and other artifacts distant from river in steppe lands

None determined

Land Surveying

Overnight camps

Small scatters of food cans and other artifacts

None determined

Survey markers

Rock cairns; sometimes with milled timber posts; lack lichen or evidence of extensive age

None determined

1880's-1943

Transportation

Wagon roads; Railroad lines & spurs

Routes on early maps, roads/grade still visible, may/may not be in use; original surface preferred

White Bluffs Road Priest Rapids (Hanford) Railroad Line

Horse (or foot) trails

Routes distinguishable on early maps

None determined

Ferry/Steamboat s & landings

Landing and grade; intact but not sub-stantially modified by modern activity; shipping and passenger use, ruins but not modernized

White Bluffs and Vernita Ferry Landings

Freight landings

Location where trade goods were unloaded from boats to back trains or wagons; loading slips and associated structures minimally remodeled or intact

East White Bluffs Landing

Automobile roads

Intact macadam or gravel surfacing

None determined

Service stations and repair shops

Shop with gasoline pumps and/or lift/grease pit and associated auto- related debris; original design of structure intact

None determined

Resettlement

Homesteads Farmsteads Ranches

Foundations, cellars, privies, debris scatters, gardens, fields, orchards, irrigation features (private endeavors, ditches, flumes), livestock enclosures, fences, equipment, outbuildings; intact or high archaeological integrity

McGee Ranch/Cold Creek Valley Dist.

Agriculture

Warehouses Barns

Same as above

None determined

Orchards

Intact related- structures or high archaeological integrity; orchard rows still visible

McGee Ranch/Cold Creek Valley Dist.

Field systems

Fenced fields, previously plowed

None determined

Equipment

Farm machinery; corroded, but all parts present

None determined

Water Control (Irrigations)

Private artesian wells

Intact structures or high archaeological integrity

McGee Ranch/Cold Creek Valley Dist.

Pumping plants

Concrete structures that house electric or diesel pumps associated with irrigation lines; intact, unchanged exterior

Alert Pumping Plant

Water distribution systems

Earth, concrete or wood-lined ditches; shown on maps of period

Hanford Ditch (45-BN-309H), Yakima Irrigation Ditch System

Same as above

Flumes, wooden, tile, or concrete pipes; form intact

McGee Ranch/Cold Creek Valley Dist.

Religion

Churches

First church buildings; if no longer in use for original purpose, integrity of design

None determined

Education

Schools, libraries

Intact structures built for purpose; not subsequently modified for a different purpose

None determined

Townsites and Railroad Whistlestops

House sites, outbuildings, commercial/indu strial facilities; roads, trails, schools

High archaeological integrity; integrity of original townsite or whistlestop layout or plan

White Bluffs, Hanford townsites

Energy: natural gas exploration

Well sites

Mud pit, drill pad, & associated debris support settlements or temporary camps

None determined

Gas lines

Pipelines; not converted to other uses

None determined

Utilities (Rural electrification)

Power lines, telephone lines

Structures intact

None determined

4.5.3 Perspectives on Cultural Significance

Lees and Noble (1990: 10) noted that in the 1980s, the language set forth in the National Register of Historic Places had become the standard against which archaeological significance was measured in cultural resource management and, by extension, American archaeology. Yet the National Register criteria, as most would agree, are woefully inadequate for providing a workable definition of site significance that can be employed by those charged with federally mandated review and compliance. As preservationists have sought to resolve questions of eligibility to the National Register, the concept of context has proved increasingly useful. Indeed, this very document attempts to provide a context for the pre-Hanford resettlement era. Lees and Noble (1990: 10-11) outlined the causes of the problem:

In their attempts to grapple with assessing the significance of historic sites, archaeologists and cultural resource managers have faced, and continue to face, a number of important problems. These problems stem from diverse factors, including the differences between data bases representing the historic and prehistoric periods, long-standing biases in American archaeology, the numbers and seeming redundancy of many types of historic sites, the recent age and closeness of many sites to modern-day culture, and the fact that sites of the historic period may be studied by archaeologists, architectural historians, and historians, among others.

They also pointed out that investigation of 19th and 20th century historic sites is a relatively recent interest and there is lacking both a large amount of research data against which new information can be measured and clearly articulated central research themes in the archaeological literature. Late 19th and early 20th century farmsteads provide a good case in point. In certain parts of the country, such relatively recent farmsteads are extremely plentiful, are in varying states of preservation (e.g., with or without standing structures, abandoned or inhabited), and may still be a functioning part of current cultural and economic systems (Lees and Noble 1990: 11). While some sites may be more than 50 years old, there is widespread inconsistency in the way such resources are inventoried and evaluated as part of the preservation process. At the level of significance evaluation, inconsistency is manifest by such variables as whether an archaeologist, historian, or architectural historian, or any combination thereof, argues or judges the merits of a particular site, or what suppositions for evaluating site significance is being used. Lees and Noble (1990: 12) lamented:

The upshot, when considered across the board, is an indefensible approach to the assessment of archaeological significance for historic resources. Although it is heartening that historic sites are now explicitly considered worthy of the same protection accorded to prehistoric sites, where once they tacitly were not, the reality of dealing with such resources falls far short of the ideal. This sad state of affairs, in effect, has served to diminish the credibility of historical archaeology and those who practice it in the eyes of the paying public.

As representatives of the paying public, a question often posed by federal land managers,

SHPOs, and certainly many well-meaning cultural resource specialists about 19th and 20th century farmsteads is: Weve got thousands of these! Whats so great about this one? This is a fair question considering the fact that farmstead sites are among the most ubiquitous historic period sites on the North American continent, and more are identified daily in cultural resource management studies (Wilson 1990: 23). In 1995, dozens of farmstead sites were recorded at the Hanford Site by crews from Washington State University engaged in block surveys of the 100 Areas and other Areas. Granted that the small single family farm is extremely common archaeological site type in America, today, over 25 years after passage of the National Historic Preservation Act, farmsteads across the country are frequently determined either eligible for the National Register simply because they may contain data on 19th-century lifeways or ineligible because they are typical of thousands of 19th century farm sites (cf. Wilson 1990: 23). There have been some recent attempts to compare farmsteads within a broader geographic or temporal context (e.g., Brooks and Jacon 1994; McManamon 1985).

Wilson (1990) devised an approach to determine National Register significance that involves screening large numbers of farmsteads within a given study area during early stages of CRM surveys in a manner which directs further efforts at individual sites toward supporting site eligibility under Criterion D (likely to yield information important in history). His approach could be especially useful for district or multiple property nominations, where the time and expense of examining primary documents for each site (e.g., deeds, probate records, daybooks, etc.) can be prohibitive and often poorly rewarded. The key feature of his approach is to extensively exploit readily available secondary sources such as county atlases and maps, town and country histories, and USDA soil surveys to obtain comparable data for large numbers of sites in a manner that facilitates placement of sites in a broader geographic and socio-economic context.

Wilson (1990: 24) warned that this may sound old hat since these very sources are already routinely used in CRM work at the reconnaissance level of study. But, the use of these sources has generally been rather unsophisticated. For example, secondary documentation has been almost exclusively used to enable field crews to find sites and roughly outline broad culture-historical patterns. Soil surveys are almost always used by CRM practitioners to predict or model prehistoric site location, rather than as a tool to study historic land use. Wilson (1990: 24) advocated a synthetic approach, using these sources as a data package that can substantially assist in the placement of historic farmsteads in national, regional, and local contexts for the purpose of significance assessment. His approach facilitates generation of testable hypotheses appropriate to archaeological significance statements.

Wilson (1990: 29-30) suggested that the eligibility of single-occupation farmsteads with 20 years or less of occupation can be easily evaluated. As short-term, single household occupations, these (single component) sites offer analytical clarity for the potential excavator. As such, they have potential to address historical and theoretical questions at the local, regional, and national levels. Wilson cautions that these sites may be exceedingly fragile, with few obvious features and low artifact content. Extensive subsurface testing to determine their eligibility could result in major damage to such sites if performed without an exceptionally well-designed strategy and a researcher acquainted with only materially richer sites could be easily disappointed into considering them too ephemeral to contain significant information.

Wilson (1990: 30) suggested that sites representing single household occupations spanning 21-60 years have even greater archaeological potential. Similar in most respects to the above group, these sites may be expected to contain somewhat more material, and may be more likely to reflect economic and social change during their longer periods of occupation. At the Hanford Site, many of the farmsteads will fall into either of these two groups. Fewer will fall into farmsteads representing multi-household occupations of over 20 years duration. Wilson (1990: 30) posed three questions that help differentiate multi-household farmsteads into those that are eligible, not eligible, or possibly eligible:

Are features and archaeological deposits temporally and spatially distinct? This concern relates to the National Register question of integrity, both in terms of modern disturbance and sequential historic occupation.

Was destruction of superstructure catastrophic (as opposed to deliberate)? This is another integrity question, concerned with demolition practices and effects of natural disasters on site data classes. Generally, superstructure demolition (e.g., during a Hanford clean-up) or deliberate burning will leave a more distorted artifact and feature record than will such catastrophic events as natural fires and floods.

Is there a good record of successive occupations, relative to the record for similar sites in the study area? A sense of the extent and reliability of the archival record within the area is necessary to answer this question.

An example of an eligible multi-household farmstead site would be one where successive dwellings and outbuildings are located in different areas of the farmyard, there is a complete record of owners and tenants, and the whole complex burns down accidentally on a known date. Obviously, such situations are pretty rare, though, the sudden eviction in 1943 and subsequent razing of structures presents a similar situation. An example of an ineligible multi-household farmstead would be one with a minimal record of occupation, evidence of major rebuilding episodes involving a thorough housecleaning coupled with removal of intact superstructures to other sites. Unfortunately, this scenario is more common. The most frequent situation is multi-household farmstead sites where eligibility is uncertain. These are the sites that are most subject to the politics of CRM; being preserved, excavated, or destroyed almost capriciously depending largely upon the perceptions and background of contractors and agency personnel.

Wilson (1990: 32) concluded that at least 10 percent of towns in a county would have good secondary data and that expanding the data base might rest on treating such towns as pilot study areas, employing analytical techniques similar to those presented in his case study, and then comparing the results between pilot areas, and with less well documented communities of similar broad historic and ecomomic settings. The Hanford Site, with its former townsites, might be amenable to this approach. The relatively better documented White Bluffs townsite(s) could be the pilot study and then compared to lesser known spots (Ringold, Wahluke, etc.). As Wilson (1990: 32) observed, a pilot study approach provides a relatively quick and low cost means of initially identifying and classifying the bulk of farmsteads within a town, county, state, or large CRM study area with improved resolution as the data-base expands. This approach, in turn, can provide sharper analytical focus for field examination during National Register assessment to separate the eligible from the ineligible or possibly eligible.

For evaluating the significance of farming or ranching sites in Nevada, Hardesty (1982: 214) suggested several criteria:

Does the site satisfy criteria for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places?

  1. Are site features archaeologically visible and reasonably undisturbed?
  2. Does historic research on the site suggest:

a) specialized use of site features that will give a clear archaeological picture?

b) relatively long, continuous occupation of domestic structures that can provide archaeological data about household processes over time? Especially important are historical data about changes in household composition, house rebuilding, subsistence/wage patterns, and the like.

c) the archaeological record of the site may consist of more than one type - for example, both trash disposal and fire.

Does the site provide archaeological information about a poorly documented event or statistical population, such as the post-WWI veterans bonus homesteading population?

Are the site features vertically or horizontally stratified so that studies of culture or ecological change can take place?

Does the site contain features that can be dated rather precisely?

Is the site unique or a member of a statistical population? If the latter, what new information about the population will the site contribute?

  1. Does the site have a multi-ethnic occupation? If so, does it potentially provide new information about ethnic interaction?

Does the site have features that can be used for the study of environmental change?

Does the site have features that can be used to study multiple ranching/farming activities? For example, does the site include only a residential structure or does it include a residential structure, a variety of specialized outbuildings, line shacks in a variety of ecological zones, and so forth?

Does the site have interpretive potential?

Does the site potentially provide information about changes in ranching or farming patterns over time?

Hardesty (1982: 216-217) also proposed several key research questions that can be addressed for farming or ranching sites. One of these is building and testing models of change in agricultural societies (appropriate technology vs. industrialization, farming/ranching as support systems for mining operations or local markets, the role of large landholding companies (railroads) in regional development, the role of water control technology, general ecological models, and ideal vs. real geographical and economic patterns of ranching and farming). Other key questions pertain to frontier studies (e.g., archaeological data from the farming/ranching to build and test competing models of the frontier or testing and modifying general ecological models of colonization) and environmental studies (e.g., environmental responses to managed ecosystems using both documentary and archaeological data and farming/ranching management solutions to environmental responses). Key questions might also include ethnicity and ethnic relations (Indian responses to farming/ranching operations, urban vs. rural patterns of ethnicity and ethnic relations - Basque, Chinese, Italian, etc.), predictive models of site location variability, and site formation process on farms and ranches.

Recently, Hardesty (1991) proposed several interpretive themes that might provide a regional framework for the entire Intermountain West. These interpretive themes are roughly applicable to the Hanford Site and provide fruitful raw material from which cogent research questions can be developed. Hardesty (1991: 29) relies on Patricia Limericks (1987) Legacy of Conquest to develop these few essential regional themes. Limerick argued that the regional culture of the American West is dominated by an ideology of innocence, property for profit, the problems of living in an arid environment, a social structure and cultural ideology imposed by Anglo-American conquest, resentment of but dependency upon the federal government, and an economy based upon high risk and uncertain enterprises such as mining and ranching. Hardesty (1991: 30) suggested that the best approach to building an interpretive framework for a regional historical archaeology is to consider the American West both as a persisting regional culture and as the periphery or frontier of an evolving American world system with all that that implies for dynamic interaction and change. He further suggested that the evolution of the regional culture can be tracked through several evolutionary pathways including the evolution of hydraulic societies, uncertain enterprises and boom-bust cycles, dependency upon the federal government, the evolution of conquest society, and frontier urbanism. He concluded that a cultural matrix is needed to understand the evolution of the Intermountain West.

For the Hanford Site, such a cultural matrix would surely include the evolution of hydraulic societies (irrigation programs), uncertain enterprises (ranching), boom-bust cycles, dependency upon the federal government (especially at the end of the context period when the Hanford Engineer Works was formed), and the evolution of the conquest society (as the Hanford Site was resettled by Euro-Americans). Each of these regional themes is explored below.

Hardesty (1991: 30) remarked that if the Intermountain West, as a place, holds anything in common, it is aridity. Coping with the scarcity of water, therefore, is likely to be an important process in the evolution of regional social and cultural patterns. Both the archaeological and documentary records suggest that a common coping strategy in arid environments is the formation of hydraulic societies organized around the control of water. At the Hanford Site, the irrigation schemes of the railroads and other organizations to harness the waters of the Columbia has been discussed earlier (see Section 5.00). Hardesty (1991: 30) commented that in Rivers of Empire, the historian Donald Worster (1985: 7) argued that the 20th century American West has been transformed into an hydraulic society in which, after 1940, a working partnership between the Bureau of Reclamation and agribusiness has formed a coercive, monolithic, and hierarchical system, ruled by a power elite based on the ownership of capital and expertise. The role of the American world system in creating hydraulic society in the Intermountain West is exemplified by federal reclamation projects in the early 20th century (e.g., the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902 that authorized large-scale water projects).

Mining and ranching are prime examples of the uncertain enterprises responsible for boom-bust cycles. Both are modern capitalistic structures associated with 19th century expansion of the American nation-state into the American West (Hardesty 1991: 31). Often, boom-bust cycles are linked to market price fluctuations in a capitalistic world system framework, but weather can have an impact upon ranching cycles. Earlier discussions reviewed the rise and fall of ranching enterprises within or near the Hanford Site and the disastrous winters of the early 1880s that destroyed vast herds of livestock. Mining, which played a minor role at the Hanford Site, was mainly carried out on a small scale by Chinese subsistence miners who were locally oriented, cash-poor, and had few ties to the large world system. In contrast to the capitalistic pattern, the material culture of subsistence mining is expected to vary considerably from one locale to another, but the individual artifact assemblage is less diverse (Hardesty 1991: 31).

Limerick (1987: 26) characterized the West as a place undergoing conquest - a region tied together by its common experience with conquest by an invading people (Euro-Americans). It is an important meeting ground for diverse peoples and cultures; a kaleidoscope of constantly evolving social and cultural patterns created by the process and ideology of conquest. The conquest resulted both in a land grab (away from the Indians) and cultural dominance by the invaders with the emergence of an appropriate social and cultural context to support such a system. Hardesty (1991: 32) observed that the formation of conquest culture can be tracked through the social and cultural transformation of the principal players, including the indigenous Indians and historic Anglo-American migrants. Other migrants to the region (and the Hanford Site area) such as Asian-Americans also provide evolutionary tracks for interpreting the emerging conquest culture. Documenting the impact of this transformation upon material culture including artifact assemblages, subsistence, and settlement systems is one of the key roles that should be played by historical archaeology in the Intermountain West.

Hardesty (1991: 33) suggested that there is no better illustration of the linkage of the Intermountain West to the American world system than its great dependency upon the federal government for economic support (Limerick 1987). Without question, federal involvement in the economic development, colonization, and land management of the region has been a persistent cultural theme throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. A large number of archaeological sites are related in one way or another to the evolution of federal dependency in the region and the archaeological record should be a good source of information about the evolution of settlement systems associated with large-scale federal projects.

A timely article by Susan Henry (1995) puts the problem into a broader perspective. The historic farmsteads at the Hanford Site are now well over 50 years old (e.g., 53 years have passed since the Hanford Site was established in 1943 and historic occupation of the area was terminated by the government). Henry (1995:10) noted that federal agency staff are often hesitant to evaluate 20th century sites as significant because the extensive historical knowledge that allows for effective site evaluation does not exist for the 20th century. That is, we dont know enough about how archaeology can contribute to our understanding of the 20th century, so we cant tell how valuable any one site will be in helping us learn. Henry (1995: 10) concluded from her review that 20th century archaeological sites are being neglected from consideration and that personal views of the past (e.g., our time vs. archaeological time) are intruding into our professional decisions about what is a valid period of study.

Henry (1995: 10) asks what is it about archaeology that suggests 20th century sites are not legitimate subjects of study when many historians have no problem studying 20th century topics and architectural historians are not reluctant to nominate 20th century structures to the National Register? She suggests that some may view the 20th century as not old enough for meaningful archaeological study and that archaeology is supposed to be about digging up old, buried things. For the most part, the 20th century isnt really buried or that old. It is old enough to have acquired some negative connotations, especially in regards to physical objects. Poured concrete and cinder block foundations are seen only as dilapidated ruins. Ceramics, glass, and metal are seen as just so much junk and garbage (Henry 1995: 10-11). What survives of the late 19th and early 20th century ranch or farmsteads at the Hanford Site consists mostly of stone or concrete foundations, ceramic and glass scatters, and rusted metal objects.

Henry (1995: 11) notes that dramatic social, economic, technological, and political changes occurred during the first half of the 20th century that profoundly affected every aspect of daily life. To that we might add that the events that transpired at the Hanford Engineer Works between 1943 and 1945 have profoundly affected every aspect of daily life as nuclear war became a frightening reality for mankind. Henry (1995: 11) highlighted the major changes in the first half of the 20th century - the period of time when America evolved rapidly from 19th century agrarian, Victorian culture into a 20th century urban, technological culture. There were major, dramatic changes in virtually all areas of everyday life - technology, medicine, fashion, recreation, entertainment, sports, politics, economics, etc.

Henry (1995: 11) states that these were significant trends in the development of the nation and of our local communities, and the processes of change and their physical and social effects are etched upon the landscape and upon the patterns of material objects and sites. Henry further laments that 20th century archaeological sites are not being nominated to the National Register and either by accident or design, are being left outside the federal management and protection system. Henry (1995: 11) suggests that archaeology does not stop at 1900 and rather than declare that 20th century sites are not significant because we dont know enough to evaluate them, we should be bold and say they are significant, because at this point anything we could learn from them would be a major step forward. At the Hanford Site, such an approach to 20th century sties would only trigger the often raised question - Weve got thousands of these! Whats so great about this one?

Henry (1995) notes that our lack of attention to 20th century sites means that we havent yet come to grips with the overwhelming quantities of 20th century documents and sites. While faced with apparent site redundancy, we havent learned how to distinguish the important ones. If we dont study them, we cant make any professional decisions about redundancy, or distinguish the significant sites from the irrelevant background noise. Henry (1995: 11) also observes that some will pose the question that if we have all these documents, why do archaeology? She states (1995: 11):

If we declare that sites without documents are more important for research, then were denying the validity of historical archaeology as a whole, and saying that prehistoric sites are more important than historic sites. We delude ourselves if we equate wealth of documentary information with lesser archaeological value. If we ever think that an archaeological site wont tell us anything we couldnt learn from the documents, either were asking the wrong questions of the site, or were foolishly asking the same questions of the site that we would of the documents.

Henry (1995: 12) suggests that for 20th century sites, we have a source of information not available to archaeologists studying earlier sites - the site occupants themselves (or direct descendants). We have the opportunity to speak with the people who created these sites about attitudes, ideas, beliefs, values, symbolism, and the relationships among actions, objects, and place. If fact, oral interviews with knowledgeable informants that lived within or near the Hanford Site should be of the highest priority while such individuals are still alive.

Henry (1995: 12) concludes we should be viewing the environment as an artifact, as a physical manifestation of culture. She argues that for most of the 20th century, our environment has not been a wild or natural one, but one engineered and shaped by cultural and social behavior. Looking at buildings, cemeteries, parks, townscapes, city plans, rural landscapes, and other features as products of behavior is a form of archaeology (without digging). With five major information sources available to help us understand the 20th century (archaeological record, written record, photographic record, oral history, and the physical environment) we have the opportunity to conduct sophisticated archaeology and to develop new techniques and theories that could revolutionize the way archaeology is done on older sites.

4.5.4 Methods and Criteria to Evaluate Cultural Significance

National Register Bulletin #15 states that a property that possesses integrity will possess several or all of the following aspects of integrity: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feelings, and association. Perhaps the most critical hurdle to be faced at the Hanford Site is the issue of integrity. Under most circumstances, when historic properties (structures, buildings, etc.) are demolished, they most certainly lose critical aspects of integrity (design, materials, workmanship, and feelings). The question is, do such demolished historic properties at the Hanford Site still retain archaeological integrity? That is, as archaeological sites, do they retain any aspects of integrity and what aspects must they retain to be National Register eligible? Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to these questions.

Since the majority of the physical features attributed to late 19th and early 20th century Euro-American occupation were quickly obliterated by the Hanford Engineer Works in 1943-1944, historic farms, ranches, irrigation systems, and even townsites were quickly reduced to archaeological sites.

The rapid evacuation of local residents led to a sudden halt in the Euro-American agrarian system on the Hanford site, and the farms, ranches, and other improvements suddenly became a fossil cultural system. Although the residents were able to pack up their portable belongings, their homes, fields, orchards, and ditches could not be taken with them. The unique set of circumstances at Hanford created a situation where hundreds of historic archaeological sites were created almost overnight and these sites possess remarkable archaeological integrity resulting from both favorable preservation conditions and over 50 years of strict Site-wide security.

Hardestys (1995) goals for the field of historic archaeology have applicability to a large management area such as the Hanford Site. Hardesty (1995: 8) states that without question, assessing the information content of archaeological properties for National Register eligibility demands scholarly familiarity with the questions that count in history, anthropology, and related disciplines. Research questions change as new information and theories emerge. Thus, evaluating the information potential of archaeological properties requires tracking the ever changing realms of science and scholarly research. This is a task too broad for a single individual, but one well suited to national, state, or regional research teams. Hardesty (1995: 8) also suggests that more attention should be given to monitoring the interaction between high priority research questions and their required archaeological information. He suggests the solution may be a system of national, state, or regional information offices equipped with GIS technology and personnel trained to handle issues such as data redundancy and research priorities. Such an approach should help standardize the process of evaluating the information value of archaeological properties.

With regard to vernacular architecture, Hardesty suggested that important questions for a regional research plan would include the evolution and diffusion of building forms, the organization of building space, and the structural grammars of building styles and construction. He proposed development of a contextual matrix for vernacular buildings. On one side of the matrix would be building types likely to be encountered (sod or dirt roof, rubble-rock, dugouts, wattle-and-daub, wooden mass-walled (log or railroad tie walls), brick, adobe or mud-wall, cut stone, and wood frame) and on the other side of the matrix would be listed several key research themes relating to vernacular buildings (use of space; evolution of building forms; chronology; evolution of building styles; ethnicity and building form, style, and construction; and geography of building construction). Key research questions can then be identified for each cell of the matrix and allows for the evaluation of resources that are representative of a vernacular form against prescribed Criteria of significance specific to that form.

For each property type, then, a set of criteria must be developed to assess integrity (or lack thereof) and to evaluate National Register eligibility. As noted above, the key to developing eligibility criteria is to develop a research context, with pertinent research questions, through which properties can be evaluated.

Hardesty (1986: 65) also cautioned that it is often necessary to assess the relative significance of historical sites, buildings, structures, features, deposits, and objects and such evaluations should revolve around specific significance values:

Inventory value. Poorly represented or rare historical sites and features for each cultural theme have higher inventory value than site types that are well known. In addition, sites and features with good time or function identification or associated with time/use diagnostics have higher inventory value than those that do not.

Historical value. Historical sites and features that can be associated with important people and events have higher historical value than those that are not. Historical sites and features that can be shown to have symbolic associates with existing cultures or peoples have higher historical value than those that do not.

Scientific value. Historical sites and features that contain information related to key research questions for dominant cultural themes have higher historical value than those that are not. Historical sites and features that can be shown to have symbolic associations with existing cultures or peoples have higher historical value than those that do not.

Agricultural Sites

Brooks and Jacon (1994: 85) observed that there is a great deal of confusion concerning how to evaluate agricultural complexes and small homestead/farmstead remains from an archaeological perspective. Part of the problem is that the archaeology of agriculture is a relatively new and evolving field. Small farmsteads which, unlike more developed agricultural properties, have fewer artifacts and features to analyze and interpret. While individually, a majority may not appear to be eligible for listing in the National Register, the key to understanding their eligibility would be to view them as part of a larger group. In a broader perspective, these sites could begin to address questions about settlement patterns, homesteading laws, cultural landscapes, consumer behavior, market accessibility, ethnicity, gender, the pioneer lifestyle and frontier adaptation. To this end, Brooks and Jacon (1994: 85-90) present a number of research areas that could be applied to the agricultural sites at the Hanford Site.

The first research area proposed by Brooks and Jacon (1994: 85) pertains to the physical manifestation of legislation. They note that when recording a homestead site(s), it is important to both record what is found and conduct thorough historical research (e.g., who settled the site, under what homestead act, and subsequent land transactions). By determining under what act the site was initially settled, one can begin to get a broader perspective as to the types of legislation that were being utilized by the homesteaders to maintain their claims. Legislation may have affected the feature systems found at a homestead. Comparison of feature systems of sites settled under the original Homestead Act of 1862 with claims established under the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909, the Stock Raising Act of 1916, and the Timber Culture Act of 1873 or the Desert Land Act of 1877 might reveal how different feature systems are reflective of the different homesteading laws. This can be especially useful if an archaeologist must evaluate a site that lacks historical documentation.

A second research area pertains to the economic aspects of agricultural settlement (Brooks and Jacon 1994: 85). Consumer behavior is the study of behavior associated with the acquisition, use and discard of material things. The four parts to this behavior: the decision to consume, acquisition, use and post-use deposition, can be used by an archaeologist to study how this type of economic and social behavior was used to satisfy physical, social, cultural and economic needs.

Studies of consumer behavior can be used to explore the choices determined by cultural or social influences. Current theory is that consumer choices are not random but are made from a range of available commodities and consumer decisions are made according to market availability and are influenced by social and cultural persuasions. These in turn are conditioned by social status or class, ethnicity, household size and organization and political status. Hence, trash dumps, buildings, equipment, livestock and crops at homesteading sites can be used to understand the choices made by household consumers and the archaeologist must try to determine how ethnicity, class or other phenomena affected the choices made on the frontier (Brooks and Jacon 1994: 86).

Consumer behavior is also affected by access to major markets. Households in rural areas, during the 19th century, that had limited access to major markets tended to purchase and use ceramic assemblages whose total economic value is lower than assemblages from households within and near these markets. There might also be a time lag, if noticeable, in the types of ceramics that are available in rural areas as compared to urban locations. This idea can be broadened to include the range of commodities such as agricultural equipment, canned goods, seeds, etc. For early sites, archaeologists could examine the relationship between distance to the railroad or townsite and the quality and quantity of artifacts located at a property. Conversely, local transportation systems established by settlers away from the railroads and towns may invalidate any connection between an artifact assemblage and proximity to railroads. An other area that could be explored is the effect of access to a wide range of commodities, by rural households, through mail order catalogs that flourished in thearly 20th century.

Another research area is land use and settlement patterns. The study of land use patterns may assist a researcher in distinguishing between various types of agricultural activities since agricultural patterns can be attributed to the kind of crop, the local environment, and ethnic preferences or some combination of these. Brooks and Jacon (1994: 87) cite an example from Arizona homesteading where four homesteads were settled by an extended family. Family members had filed on adjacent claims that were in a block-like configuration and had placed their houses at the junction where the four claims met. Oral history of the area revealed that the claimants had shared equipment and supplies, worked each others claims and had eaten communally. Thus, what were four distinct homesteads on paper were actually managed as one large unit. Similar situations could have existed at Hanford.

Elements of the landscape, such as walls, road remnants, trail ruts, foundations and refuse sites, are all amenable to archaeological analysis. Historic archaeology can also use palynology and soil analysis to determine historic planting patterns and historic patterns of field division and land use; analysis of sequential land use based on existing vegetation or plant succession; remote sensing to detect buried walls, foundations, and roadways; and excavation to uncover buried irrigation systems, canals, or planting beds (cf. Brooks and Jacon 1994: 87-88). Rubertone (1989: 51) believes historic archaeologists can study the landscape to examine the way people organized their economic activities in space and the way people used space to define social relationships, attain political ends and express beliefs.

Another useful research area is the study of frontier adaptation, as it is reflected in the archaeological and architectural record. Anthropological perspectives such as cultural ecology and cultural materialism can be brought to bear in such studies. For example, the general layout of a site can be considered in terms of its adaptive strategy to cope with the environment and the exploitation of resources. Thus, claim era and later agricultural sites are a reflection of human behavior (Brooks and Jacon 1994: 88). Different building styles and layout can reflect various factors such as availability of materials, permanency of habitation, innovative behavior, ethnicity, gender, age, class status, environmental conditions and access to technology (cf. Panelli 1990). The archaeologist must then determine which of these factors played a role in the development of a site and how the site transformed over time as a response to a change in any of the above variables. Even ethnic identity can be ascertained from examination of the layout of a site and the use of materials.

The evolution of agricultural technology is another useful research area. The agricultural history of the Hanford Site area could provide good examples of how developments in technology are usually generated by innovations to presently existing systems. Technological change and evolution is often found at individual homesteads as personalized adjustments were made to agricultural equipment for a specific purpose. Therefore, when researching an agricultural property, the archaeologist could examine whether any innovations made to existing equipment or infrastructure (irrigation systems) were later diffused throughout a community or region. Similarly, research should exploltural property was somehow involved in the development of new crops or crop experimentation. Finally, just as Hardesty (1988) suggested that mining sites be investigated at the level of feature systems, so too should agricultural sites. Feature systems for agricultural sites could include management features, consisting of structures or the remains of structures related to water, animal or crop management. Manufacturing features could include blacksmithing sites. Thus, if an agricultural property is investigated as an evolving dynamic process made up of feature systems, then in theory, a change to any one part of the system should generate changes in its other parts. For example, a change in water management systems that created greater crop surpluses may have translated into better profits which was ultimately reflected in architectural elaborations used to display financial gain and increased social status (Brooks and Jacon 1994: 89).

The following questions can be posed of each potential historic farm or ranch property in order to gauge its cultural or historical significance.

Does the property provide information about a poorly documented event or statistical population (e.g., post- WW I veterans bonus homesteading population)?

Does the property have important interpretative potential because of the large number and variety of surviving elements related to the ranching and farming process (e.g., McGee Ranch)?

Does the property retain a wide range of individual building types (or intact archaeological remains) that illustrate the various activities associated with ranching (or farming)?

Does the property provide important information about the historical changes in ranching and farming practices (e.g., the advent of irrigation systems, the arrival of the railroad and easier access to markets)?

Was the property closely associated with the introduction of a new agricultural practice (e.g., the first farm to introduce orchard crops)?

Was the property the first to be established in a particular valley or region?

Was the property closely associated with an historically-important route of travel (e.g., the White Bluffs Road)?

Was the property associated with a historically-important individual?

Was the property associated with a particularly significant event in history?

Is the property significant architecturally?

Is the property a component of a larger entity?

Is the property an important work of a master craftsman or architect?

Perhaps the most outstanding example to date of how local/regional historical importance has been used to evaluate eligibility of agricultural sites is the documentation prepared to determine eligibility of the McGee Ranch/Cold Creek Valley District (Pacific Northwest Laboratory 1994). The statement of significance prepared for the District ties in a number of themes that help demonstrate how and why the historic (and also prehistoric) resources contribute to a greater understanding of local/regional history. Briefly, the Pacific Northwest Laboratory (1994: 16) argued as follows.

While many homestead/farmstead sites have been seriously disturbed (1943 evacuation and demolition activities; subsequent Hanford cleanup programs), the McGee Ranch/Cold Creek Valley District is a relatively intact representation of early farming and ranching ventures in the Columbia Basin including homesteads, furrowed fields, fencelines, irrigation systems, and trash concentrations. That is not to say that McGee Ranch and other historic properties in the District avoided the destructive effects of cleanups. In fact, during the 1970s, Hanford undertook the demolition of most of the remaining pre-1943 structures on Site. Thus, the destruction of the majority of the farm buildings in the District probably dates to this time. Additional disturbance occurred at the Ford, Rothrock, and Meeker home/farmsteads when the artesian wells at these locations were capped following the closure of the Basalt Waste Isolation Project in 1987. Less disturbance occurred at the Brown homestead as the well at this site was not used during Hanford Operations, and because the homestead was more remote. The semi-subterranean structures missed detection and thus avoided destruction during Hanford cleanup operations. In spite of the loss of the standing structures, the historic properties in the McGee Ranch/Cold Creek Valley District retain their archaeological integrity.

The historic properties in the McGee Ranch/Cold Creek Valley District are unique in the region insofar as their use of and reliance upon artesian wells. Throughout the region, irrigation was being developed on a mostly large-scale basis (e.g., Yakima Irrigation Company, Hanford Irrigation and Power Company, Priest Rapids Irrigation Company) but private irrigation systems, relying on wells developed along the Columbia River in the Pasco Basin, are not as well documented. Study of the archaeological remains left at sites in the District can provide new information on the agricultural development and irrigation history of the area and information on the lifestyles of these early farm/ranch families. In addition, study of the semi-subterranean complexes may also yield new information on the lifestyle of individuals during the Great Depression. Thus, using standard evaluation criteria, the District would qualify for listing in the National Register under Criterion A (association with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history) and D (that may be likely to yield information important in history or prehistory).

Mining Sites

At the Hanford Site, gold mining is related to Chinese gleaners who purchased previously worked claims. In Washington Territory, thousands of Chinese gleaners bought up secondary claims in the late 1860s and early 1870s, and established camps and settlements of their own. One observer noted that in 1864, hundreds of Chinamen were at this time mining along the bars of the Columbia for a distance of 150 miles upstream from Umatilla (Chatters 1989: D10). The largest group of about 100 Chinese were working a few miles above Rock Island near Wenatchee where they bought a large gravel bar the previous year from white miners, built a big ditch (feeder trough and sluice and were sluicing (Splawn 1980: 200-210). At least two nearby sites were believed to be associated with Chinese mining activity - - 45-GR-418H and 45-KT-388. The former contains 13 circular pits in the cobbles of the shoreline and four rock alignments which extend into the river. The latter also contains 29 shallow depressions into the river gravels along the slope of the present shoreline. Neither site yielded any surface indications to confirm possible Chinese mining affiliation, however (cf. Harvey 1982: 197).

Hardesty (1988: 116-117) proposes the use of a significance evaluation matrix when trying to evaluate the importance of mining sites. He notes that evaluating the significance of mining sites with the scholarly/scientific information criteria can be facilitated by using a significance evaluation matrix for each research strategy. The matrix is a simple two dimensional table with the contextual scales of world system, mining district system, and feature system on the vertical axis and the key problem domains (demography, technology, social organization, ideology) on the horizontal axis. In this way, the questions to be used in the significance evaluation process are arranged within a three-tiered hierarchical framework. Hardesty (1988: 117) notes that the evaluation matrix is, of course, no more than a heuristic aid to help identify the archaeological information that is most useful in scholarly and scientific research and it should not be used rigidly. He further cautioned that the evaluation matrix is a quantitative approach that contrasts with the qualitative, either/or, approach set by National Register guidelines, but feels the two are complementary. The following questions can be posed of each potential historic gold mining property in order to gauge its cultural or historical significance:

Is the site the first of its kind?

Does the site represent a major change in mining technology?

Is the site the last of an era?

Does the site represent a new or innovative or experimental approach to mining?

Does the site reflect or represent a prospector structure (cf. Hardesty 1988: 115)? That is, does the site reflect use of non-industrial technology consisting of such tools as long toms: and simple arrastras that can be handled by single individuals or small groups; low capitalization, usually no more than a grubstake; dispersed control structure, centered upon individual miners; low potential yield from the placers; and low spatial autocorrelation of the placers being worked - that is, historical events in each of the placer islands on the frontier were more or less independent of each other?

Railroad Sites

At the Hanford Site, direct rail service was a rather late addition to the overall transportation system available to local farmers and ranchers. In 1995, the Hanford Cultural Resource Laboratory prepared an archaeological site form for the Hanford branch of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad - a linear feature which extends for over eight miles within the Hanford Site (HT-95-221). This railroad company began construction in Washington in 1906 and the Priest Rapids line (Hanford branch line) began its service from Beverly to Hanford in 1913. Named Sagebrush Annie, the train carried passengers, produce, and mail from Hanford to other destinations throughout the Northwest and connected Hanford to the main line at Beverly. This line effectively brought to a close Hanfords relative isolation from the rest of southeast Washington and the greater Pacific Northwest. In 1943, the government contracted Morrison Knudsen Company to remove the original tracks and replace them with tracks capable of supporting heavier weight. The line was also extended to Richland at that time.

As a property type, railroad sites can produce a variety of physical remains in various states of preservation and the Priest Rapids line is no exception in this regard. Left behind are physical remains at three of the four whistle stops: Vernita (a wooden platform), Riverland (shed), Haven Station (a train box-car supported by hand-placed river rocks), and Allard (no physical evidence). Physical remains of a short spur that split off at Bleakley to a fruit warehouse could not be found in the field. Railroad sidings are partially intact at the former location of the White Bluffs train depot and historic artifacts are scattered along segments of track (various tin cans, glass, metal hoops, nails, ceramics, and milled lumber ties). Even though the stations and stops and large segments of track have relatively poor archaeological integrity resulting from various actions that have taken place between 1943 and today, the Hanford Cultural Resource Laboratory indicates potential eligibility for this line based on its historical importance. One site type frequently associated with railroad construction is the small domed rock oven structure which was often constructed by Italian immigrants for baking bread (cf. Wegars 1991). Two such rock ovens are located within or adjacent to the Hanford Site (24-BN-244 which was associated with construction of the Union Pacific line and 24-BN-190 which is located near Yellepit siding; see Wegars 1991: 63).

Where historical importance is used as the prime criterion for establishing eligibility, the cultural resource specialist must clearly demonstrate how and why a railroad resource is important. In the case of the Priest Rapids line, Criterion A might be employed since the line played an important role in the regions transportation history - being the first to operate electronically (the Hanford branch locomotive operated on steam until at least 1943) and it was the last cross-continental railway system built in the United States (e.g., its association with important events or series of events - completion of last cross-continental railway, etc.). The site form prepared by the Hanford Cultural Resource Laboratory documents that the line created significant impacts to the region, and served two transportation purposes. It served the agricultural community from 1913 to 1943 transporting produce, mail, and passengers and it increased access to Seattle produce markets which added to the growth and success of local communities until the Great Depression. The Priest Rapids route was the cause for the third move of the White Bluffs townsite to its final location and after 1943, it played an important role in the transportation of materials for the construction of the Hanford Site.

Road Sites

An important property type at the Hanford Site are roads. The White Bluffs Road is a particularly good example of this property type since it has been sufficiently investigated to enable the Hanford Cultural Resource Laboratory to document its potential eligibility and prepare a nomination. Although the road has lost integrity in many places, its historical importance enabled it to be determined eligible and nominated under Criterion A. The nomination document, briefly reviewed here (Pacific Northwest Laboratory n.d.), provides a good example of how Criterion A can be used to establish eligibility of roads and other historic features or feature systems at the Hanford Site.

The White Bluffs Road probably first came into existence as a major Indian trail (Rice 1984). Within the Hanford Site, the road connected Rattlesnake Springs with a commonly-used ford across the Columbia River at White Bluffs. The first documented use of the route by settlers was in 1853 by the Longmire party, which was the first wagon train to cross the Cascades (Parker 1979). Traveling from Indiana to Puget Sound, the Longmire Party crossed the Yakima River and proceeded northwest along Cold Creek Valley at the base of Rattlesnake Mountain. At Wells Springs (Rattlesnake Springs) they encountered an uncrossable ravine. While scouting for an alternate route, they encountered a group of Indians who mapped out two roads for them, both of which aboriginal trails led away from the springs (one to the northeast and the other to the northwest). The Longmire Party took the northeast track which brought them to White Bluffs. The next day they retraced their way, located the correct road, and were able to traverse the ravine (Pacific Northwest Laboratory n.d.).

The White Bluffs landing, a common river crossing and debarkation point of local Indians, became a central fording, supply, and shipping point for traders seeking to supply the British Columbia gold mines. By 1860, there was sufficient road traffic to support a ferry operation at White Bluffs. Charles Splawn and Major John Thorp traveled with a pack train from The Dalles through the Yakima Valley and crossed what is now the Hanford Site in order to use the White Bluffs ferry to cross the Columbia. After crossing, they turned east through the Palouse to present-day Lewiston and then proceeded north along the Clearwater to the Pierce Mines in Idaho. In 1865, the Chief Factor of the Hudsons Bay Company ordered all of that organizations shipments from Portland to Fort Colville and the northern district be sent via White Bluffs. As well, for two years in the mid-1860s, Andrew Splawn and partners operated a pack train supply business between The Dalles and Rock Island (Splawn 1917). Their established route was to ford the Yakima near the current town of Granger, cross the Hanford Site along the White Bluffs Road to the ferry, and then follow the Benjamin Snipes cattle trail northward along the east bank of the Columbia. The inland sources of potable water within the Cold Creek Valley, which were made accessible by the White Bluffs Road, made this area an important pasturage for both horses and cattle and stimulated the development of ranching (Pacific Northwest Laboratory n.d.).

By the late 1860s, the new Mullan Road, which avoided the sandy stretches north and east of White Bluffs, coupled with the abandonment of the British Columbia mines, lead to a major decline in the ferry traffic at White Bluffs. Ferry ownership then changed hands numerous times between the late 1860s and 1870s but the ford still retained strategic importance as evidenced by the 1876 posting of 20 soldiers at the ferry to protect travelers and ranchers from Indian attack. In July, 1878, Lorenzo and Blanche Perkins crossed the Columbia at White Bluffs and crossed the Hanford Site using the White Bluffs Road and were later killed by Indians at Rattlesnake Springs (Pacific Northwest Laboratory n.d.).

The Pacific Northwest Laboratory (n.d.: 4) concluded that the White Bluffs Road played a significant role in the settlement of the immediate region, providing transportation and enhancing communication to points east and west of the early settlements along the Columbia. It is also associated with important regional historical events such as the Longmire Partys journey across the Cascades, early cattle drives and ranching, and the Indian wars of the late 19th century. It was concluded that the remaining intact portions of the road are eligible for listing in the National Register under Criterion A given its contribution to the broad patterns of local and regionald was found to epitomize the continuity provided by an important transportation pathway; beginning with prehistoric use and evolving into a settlers track, a cattle trail, a freight road, and finally, culminating with the development of nuclear energy and waste management use (Pacific Northwest Laboratory n.d.: 4).

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