After the residents of White Bluffs and Hanford had moved away, the War Department began the process of recruiting workers to build the nuclear reactors and processing facilities required to produce plutonium for atomic weapons. People came from all over the country to Hanford, ultimately forming a 51,000 person work force. As with the secrecy surrounding the reason for removing the Hanford and White Bluffs residents, very few of the workers who came to the Site knew what they were building or what these facilities would do once they were completed.
The Site was separated into three general “areas” depending on the work that was to be done there. The “100 Area” would be the land along the Columbia River where the nuclear reactors would be built. These reactors would be responsible for facilitating the nuclear chain reaction which transforms the composition of the element uranium into a material called plutonium, the critical ingredient needed for atomic weapons. The “200 Area” would be the series of facilities in the central part of the Hanford Site where the plutonium would be processed as well as the part of the Site where wastes generated by the plutonium production would be stored. The “300 Area” was a complex of buildings and laboratories where much of the manufacturing work and experiments were carried out.
In 1943, there had never been a full-scale, production size nuclear reactor built before. There were no blueprints, drawings, or designs that crews could refer to during the construction. Since computers hadn’t been invented, the top scientists and engineers often relied on hand written notes, assumptions, and calculations from slide rules in assigning workers the tasks to complete. The specialized tools needed to build these facilities also weren’t readily available so workers ended up fabricating their own tools to do the job.
The workforce created the fourth largest city in Washington State at the time, although living at Hanford didn’t offer much in the way of comfort. There were no homes for workers to live in, so most lived in travel trailers, army barracks, or even tents. Because the original shrub-steppe lands had been disturbed, wind whipped through the desert creating dust storms so fierce that people would quit and leave the project. Seasoned workers who had experienced these dust storms referred to them as “Termination Winds” since so many people new to the Site would pack up and move away after a storm rolled through the area.
Not only did workers have to build these nuclear reactors and processing facilities, but they also had to build cafeterias, auditoriums, and offices to handle the massive influx of people who were drawn to Hanford. Once employed at the Site, a typical Hanford employee worked six days a week, but received good pay and all-you-could-eat food. They believed they were doing important war work, but beyond that, they knew little else. Because secrecy was critical, workers were told not to discuss their jobs with anyone. Those who did found themselves removed from the project and sent home. Rumors about the purpose of the work included everything from a manufacturing plant to make “Re-Elect President Franklin Delano Roosevelt” buttons to making massive quantities of toilet paper!
Under the careful supervision of such noted scientists as Enrico Fermi, crews began the process of building the first three of what would ultimately be nine plutonium production nuclear reactors at Hanford. Given the code names 105-B, 105-D, and 105-F these reactors were the first of their kind in the world. Workers also built two massive processing facilities called “canyons”, where the plutonium would be extracted from the uranium “fuel rods” after they had been removed from the nuclear reactors.
In only thirteen months, construction crews completed work on the B Reactor, the world’s first nuclear reactor, as well as the T Plant, the world’s first facility to extract plutonium from irradiated fuel rods. Less than a year after that, in August of 1945, plutonium from the B Reactor and the T Plant was used in the Fat Man Bomb which was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan. World War II ended less than a week later.
