For centuries, this area along the Columbia River was home to several tribes of Native Americans including the Wanapum, the Yakama, the Nez Perce, and the Umatilla. Native Americans feasted on plentiful wild game and fish from the Columbia River, while enjoying a climate that was hot in the summer and usually comfortable during the winter.
Tribes were typically nomadic and moved from place to place in the area currently occupied by the Hanford Site, and well beyond the Site’s boundaries. As a result, remnants and artifacts associated with Native American villages and campsites are found throughout the Site. These artifacts are protected, and those who discover them are prohibited from taking them or disturbing the area.
Besides the evidence of villages and campsites, there are locations at Hanford where Native Americans who died long ago are buried. These grave sites are sacred to the tribes and should a grave be discovered, any and all work near that location is stopped until tribal leaders are consulted.
Today, Native Americans continue to hold this area of southeastern Washington State as culturally and religiously significant. Representatives from the tribes work in a government-to-government relationship with Department of Energy officials in decisions affecting the cleanup and the land itself.
While Native American tribes had long lived on the area currently occupied by the Hanford Site, it wasn’t until the mid 1800’s that pioneers and settlers began to arrive. Explorers and fur traders were the first white men to come, followed by miners, ranchers, and farmers. A little town called White Bluffs was formed, named after the 400-foot-high bluffs associated with the Saddle Mountains located across the Columbia River to the north. By the early 1940’s approximately 900 people were living in White Bluffs. Another small community known as Hanford was also located nearby. Hanford was named after Tacoma-area judge Cornelius Hanford, who was an early resident.
Hanford and White Bluffs epitomized the early American West. Farming and agriculture were the dominant industries in these little towns, even though the area receives just seven inches of rain a year. An early irrigation system provided water from the Columbia River to orchards and field crops, and fruit ripened more quickly here than in any other part of the Pacific Northwest. Small, family-run stores and other businesses began to open after the turn of the century, and some of the earliest automobiles could be seen on the dirt streets of the communities. A ferry docked near White Bluffs and shuttled passengers across the Columbia River. A railroad called “Sagebrush Annie” carried riders between Hanford and White Bluffs. Children attended schools in both communities and White Bluffs even had a weekly newspaper.
However, the same attributes which drew people to these small communities were also needed by the War Department in its effort to build an atomic weapon. It needed to have a remote area with few people nearby in order to build reactors and processing facilities; it needed the cold, clean water of the Columbia River to cool the reactors; and it needed the electricity provided by the recently completed Grand Coulee hydroelectric dam to power the buildings and structures associated with the project.
When the War Department decided to locate Hanford in this part of Washington, it also decided that the work to develop atomic weapons had to be done in secret. Subsequently, in early 1943, all of the residents of White Bluffs and Hanford were told to evacuate their homes and abandon their farms, and were given just thirty days and a small amount of money to do so. The only reason they were given to leave was that “it was important war work”. Farmers weren’t allowed to stay and to harvest their crops, resulting in some fruit growers being so angry that they chopped down all of the trees in their orchards before leaving. Even now, the stumps of these trees are still visible, remaining in the perfectly straight lines as they were more than sixty years ago. Also prohibited from going onto the Site were the Native Americans who had hunted and fished in the area for centuries.
Today, little remains of either Hanford or White Bluffs. Some of the streets and sidewalks remain, but almost all of the homes and buildings have been demolished. Hanford High School, a two-story building constructed in 1916 that was considered to be among the grandest of high schools of the time, still stands. However, the school was sometimes used as a practice target for war planes. While the shell of Hanford High remains, its roof has now collapsed and its floor has caved in. Several miles to the north, the old White Bluffs Bank is all that is left of that community, but like Hanford High School, the bank is crumbling.
