Nowhere to Remember: Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland to 1943

Nowhere to Remember

Hanford Histories

Volume I

Michael Mays, Series Editor

Nowhere to Remember

Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland to 1943

Edited by

Robert Bauman and Robert Franklin

Washington State University Press

PO Box 645910

Pullman, Washington 99164-5910

Phone: 800-354-7360

Fax: 509-335-8568

Email: [email protected]

Website: wsupress.wsu.edu

© 2018 by the Board of Regents of Washington State University

All rights reserved

First printing 2018

Printed and bound in the United States of America on pH neutral, acid-free paper. Reproduction or transmission of material contained in this publication in excess of that permitted by copyright law is prohibited without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bauman, Robert, 1964- editor of compilation. | Franklin, Robert, 1981-  editor of compilation.

Title: Nowhere to remember : Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland to 1943 / edited by Robert Bauman and Robert Franklin.

Other titles: Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland to 1943

Description: Pullman, Washington : Washington State University Press, [2018] Series: Hanford histories ; volume 1 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018015309 | ISBN 9780874223606 (alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Hanford (Wash.)--History. | White Bluffs (Wash.)--History. | Richland (Wash.)--History. | World War, 1939-1945--Evacuation of civilians--Washington (State)--Benton County. | Internally displaced persons--Washington (State)--Benton County. | Farm life--Washington (State)--Benton County. | Interviews--Washington (State)--Benton County. | Benton County (Wash.)--Biography. | Memory--Social aspects--Washington (State)--Columbia River Valley. | Hanford Site (Wash.)--History.

Classification: LCC F899.H36 N69 2018 | DDC 979.7/51--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018015309

On the cover: Hanford High School, 2018. National Park Service.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Preface

Michael Mays

Introduction: Making a History of It May Help: The Hanford Site and Its Spaces and Places of Meaning

Robert Franklin and Robert Bauman

1. An Oasis in the Desert?: White Bluffs, Hanford, and Richland, The Early Years

David W. Harvey

2. We Worked in the Orchards and We Played in the River: Life in the Towns of Richland, White Bluffs, and Hanford

Robert Franklin

3. Orchards and Open Arms: Women in the Priest Rapids Valley

Laura Arata

4. It Was Like an Invasion!: The Federal Government and the Displacement of Peoples in the Priest Rapids Valley

Robert Bauman

5. Hanford and White Bluffs Reunions: Remembering the Pre-War Communities of the Priest Rapids Valley

Robert Bauman and Robert Franklin

Appendix: Oral History Interviews

Introduction, Robert Bauman

Robert Fletcher, on Richland

Leatris Reed, on White Bluffs

Dick Wiehl, on White Bluffs

Bibliography

Contributors

Index

Illustrations

Map of Benton County

Wanapum village, circa 1941

White Bluffs ferry, circa 1909

Hanford ferry Doris

Steamboat on the Columbia River near White Bluffs

Beldin’s Store, Hanford, 1935

Downtown White Bluffs, 1918

Coyote Rapids Pumping Plant

Sagebrush Annie, Hanford and White Bluffs, circa 1920s

Promotion of White Bluffs, circa 1915

Map of Sagebrush Annie route

Dad’s homestead and sagebrush scrubber invention

Vitrified clay irrigation pipes on Bruggemann homestead

Hanford High School before eviction

Hanford High School in July 2017

White Bluffs school bus

Swimmers at the Wiehl Ranch

Rabbit drive at White Bluffs

Working in the orchards in the Priest Rapids Valley

Haying on Priest Rapids Valley farm

Women workers at a fruit packing warehouse in Hanford

Members of the Richland Grange

Red Cross Tea in April 1918

Bruggemann family cookhouse

Aerial view of Richland before evacuation

The Fletcher family home in Richland

White Bluffs Cemetery monument, Prosser Cemetery

Graves of former Hanford and White Bluffs residents, Prosser Cemetery

The Buck family

White Bluffs-Hanford Pioneer Association Reunion, 1968

Reunion Program inside page, 1980

Reunion Program cover, 1980

Reunion Program cover, 1988

Reunion Program cover, 1990

Acknowledgments

This volume and the series of which it is a part would not have been possible without the support and contributions of a number of individuals and institutions. This series of volumes originated with the Hanford Oral History Project, begun in 2013. That project was created with the support of the Hanford History Partnership. We would like to express our sincere appreciation to the members of that partnership, particularly Ron Kathren of the Herbert M. Parker Foundation, Colleen French of the Department of Energy, Gary Petersen of TRIDEC, Maynard Plahuta of the B Reactor Museum Association, Vanessa Moore and the late CJ Mitchell of the African American Community Cultural and Educational Society (AACCES), and Ann Roseberry from the Richland Public Library. The Oral History Project and this volume would not have happened without their generosity, support, and guidance.

A special thanks to Sarah St. Hilaire for her extraordinary research assistance for the first year of the Oral History Project. Sarah provided brilliant background research on each of the early interviewees and their families which greatly benefited the project. Also, a special thanks to Anneke Rachinski who coordinated the Oral History Project and scheduled most of the interviews in 2013 and 2014. Anneke and Sarah both brought an exceptional energy and enthusiasm to the project that was missed once they moved on to other opportunities. In addition, Morgan Flaherty provided excellent research support during her brief time working on the project. Neither the project nor this volume would have happened without the efforts of Sarah, Anneke, and Morgan.

Thank you to our friends and colleagues at Pacific Northwest Television and Northwest Public Radio—particularly Tom Hungate, Linda Pasch, and Greg Mills—who recorded all of these interviews for us. Their professionalism and cooperation have been a tremendous benefit to the project.

The Hanford History Project, encompassing the Hanford Oral History Project as well as documents and artifacts from the Department of Energy’s Hanford Operations Office, was founded in 2014. Since then, a number of students have provided important research that has benefited the production of this volume. Those students include David Bolingbroke, Emma Rice, Elinor Lake, Catalina Le, Adrian Holgate, Mauren Jones, and Amanda Pearson. Without the efforts and support of Jillian Gardner-Andrews, who took over the scheduling of oral histories in 2017 and participates in every Hanford History Project outreach event, we could not have completed the work.

A special thank you to the oral history transcriptionist, Evelyn Moos, who has watched and re-watched every Hanford Oral History Project video to create and edit the transcripts used in the publication of this book. Transcription is a time-intensive task, often taking three to five times the length of the interview. Evelyn’s attention to detail and knowledge of Hanford history has been an invaluable asset to the Hanford History Project. The oral histories, with full transcripts, can be found online at www.hanfordhistory.com.

Stephanie Button at the East Benton County Historical Society and Museum provided research assistance and photographs used in the making of this volume. Stephanie threw open the EBCHSM archives to us on numerous occasions and her support is greatly appreciated.

Bob Clark at WSU Press has believed in this project from the beginning and enthusiastically advocated for it. Indeed, this volume and the series of which it is a part, would not have happened without Bob. All of us involved with this volume would like to thank him for his unending support. Also, special thanks to the WSU Press staff Ed Sala, Caryn Lawton, Beth DeWeese, and Kerry Darnall; and to the WSU Press Editorial Board for their belief in our efforts. To Mike Mays, the series editor for this volume and those to follow, our thanks for your unwavering support.

The authors and co-editors have presented versions of the material in this volume at a few different academic conferences. We would like to thank commenters and audience members at the Pacific Northwest History Conference (both 2014 in Vancouver and 2017 in Spokane), the Oral History Association Conference in Tampa, Florida, in 2015, and the Western History Association Conference in San Diego in 2017. Questions and comments at those gatherings have made this volume richer and fuller.

The co-editors would like to especially thank our friends and family members who have provided so much support and inspiration over the past couple of years. Bob Bauman would like to offer special gratitude to Stephanie, Robert, and Rachel Bauman; and, Robert Franklin, again, to Evelyn Moos. And, of course, props to our co-authors, Laura Arata and Dave Harvey, whose contributions go well beyond their expertise and excellent chapters in this volume. Here’s to terrific colleagues and friends, as well as fellow conference panel members and historians!

Finally, we would like to thank all of the individuals whose interviews provided much of the background for the content of this volume. Their stories demonstrate the importance of oral history and preserving the memory of places like Hanford and White Bluffs. It is to those former residents that we dedicate this book.

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations for manuscript collections and newspapers are used throughout the notes.

Preface

From 1943 on, the Hanford, Washington, region—with its Manhattan Project ties and its massive nuclear reservation—has been known (if known at all) primarily as a secretive, destructive, and highly contaminated federal enclave, a long-standing site of controversy and, often, of infamy and shame. Yet an overly narrow focus on Hanford’s role in the war effort or, conversely, the monumental cleanup effort now underway, masks the complexities and contradictions of an isolated provincial site that, despite its remoteness, embodies many of the most pressing geopolitical issues of the entire span of the twentieth century and beyond. Indeed, the area already had a rich and complicated—if now largely forgotten—set of interwoven histories well before 1943.

These histories begin some 12,000 years ago with the last of the Ice Age Floods, then vault ahead to encompass the migration stories of indigenous Native American and pioneering European settler communities; continue through Hanford’s role in the Manhattan Project and Cold War; and bring us more recently to its ongoing role in delivering cutting-edge science and engineering in the areas of human health, waste remediation, and environmental sciences. Over the last century, those histories have cut across radically diverse areas of academic and historical inquiry including, for instance, the military-industrial complex, the Second World War, the history of science, the rise of agribusiness, the sociology and politics of the Cold War, the impact of hydropower on natural and human habitats, segregation and civil rights, literatures of the environment, and the impact of technology on the American West. The list could go on and on.

Nowhere to Remember: Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland to 1943 is the first volume in the Washington State University Press Hanford Histories series. Upcoming volumes will focus on science and the environment, race and diversity, constructing Hanford, the Manhattan Project and its legacies, and an illustrated history of Hanford. The series stems from a partnership between the press and WSU Tri-Cities’ Hanford History Project and grew out of a shared perception regarding both the broad range of stories that make up Hanford’s unique history and the relative lack of existing research on that history. We agree that while there are countless stories to be told, to date very few of them have been.

While not necessarily intentional, it is nevertheless appropriate that the first volume in the series should focus on the pre-Manhattan Project period and those communities the federal government’s atomic program displaced. The Hanford History Project (HHP) was established in 2014 to foster greater understanding and awareness of the vital role the Mid-Columbia region of Washington State—both its people and its environment—has played on the national and international stage. Collaborative from the start, HHP’s first initiative was the development of an oral history program that would complement, supplement, and coordinate existing oral history efforts in the community, some of which date back two decades or more. With seed funding provided by the United States Department of Energy (DOE), HHP’s initial focus was on capturing the stories of the rapidly declining pool of residents who inhabited White Bluffs, Hanford, and Richland Village before 1943. The history of these communities from their origins in the late nineteenth century up until the middle of World War II was altogether typical of many other nascent agricultural communities throughout the western United States. There existed a shared experience of the arrival of irrigation, a dependence on railroads, and common struggles and survival during the Great Depression. Little could the residents of these communities imagine how radically their fates would diverge from their fellow frontiersmen with the arrival of government troops in 1943. Nowhere to Remember leans heavily on the oral histories that HHP and others have recorded over the years to recount a history that would otherwise very likely have vanished along with those displaced communities.

Since its inception, the oral history program has grown to include some 170 new personal narratives ranging from early Hanford and Cold War workers to the wives and children of Hanford employees whose lives were shaped by a culture of secrecy, those involved in cleanup, and most recently, African Americans whose lives were impacted in one way or another by the Hanford Site. It has also digitized and transcribed the oral history collections of partner community groups such as the African American Community Cultural and Educational Society, the B Reactor Museum Association, and the Herbert M. Parker Foundation.

Having begun with capturing oral histories, HHP has greatly expanded its scope over the last several years in a variety of ways: through its partnerships and collaborations with like-minded local, regional, and national organizations; through the development of multidisciplinary Hanford-based curricula; through educational outreach activities; through the collection, storage, and preservation of public and private artifacts, and archival and photographic collections; and through its housing and management of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Collection, an assemblage of several thousand Hanford Site artifacts and archives collected over more than twenty years and dating from the beginning of the Manhattan Project at Hanford (1943) through the end of the Cold War (1990).

The artifacts in the Hanford Collection are extensive and many of them have important things to tell us about evolving innovations in science and technology. But many more offer a different view of the story, from the recreational activities of the workers to glimpses into domestic life in Hanford Camp and later in Richland (and Pasco, where African-American laborers were required to live). Thus they also tell us a great deal about the segregation that defined working and living conditions at the camp and beyond. Racial segregation during the construction of the site was pronounced, with separate barracks, swimming holes, and mess halls for blacks and whites. But segregation was equally rife with regard to gender and labor classifications as well. The Alphabet Houses that populate Richland to this day are quaint. But they were also mechanisms of control and of social ordering. The Hanford Collection reminds us just how many stories there are remaining to be told.

The Hanford History Project’s mission is two-fold: to facilitate and promote scholarly research that explores the forces and tensions that have shaped the region across a broad range of disciplines; and to foster and coordinate educational outreach efforts through a variety of community activities and events including lectures, seminars, conferences, workshops, and life-long learning opportunities. WSU Press is an indispensable partner in both respects.

Akin to the community’s oral histories—which have been recorded on a myriad of media formats and stored in shoe boxes, closets, garages, and attics—the archival records pertaining to the Hanford Site are scattered across the region and throughout the country. As we continue to consolidate those existing materials in one central archive, house them according to the highest professional standards of archival practices, and make them widely available through both physical and electronic means, we expect to attract scholars conducting research across a vast range of academic interests including, as noted above, the environment, fish and wildlife, diplomacy and diplomatic history, technology, waste remediation, health physics, history of science, the Second World War, the rise of agribusiness, and countless other topics. Together, through the Hanford Histories series, HHP and WSU Press are endeavoring to bring together the fragments of this fractured history, to make visible and coherent the various threads of that history for current and future generations, and to provide a much-needed venue for future research, be it in the academic or the public sphere.

Hanford Histories was established, then, to encourage and support new research by those working in diverse fields but at the leading edge of a common subject—Hanford and its stories. We seek to identify and encourage research that broadens, extends, and diversifies traditional academic disciplines; that approaches familiar subjects in unfamiliar ways; and that, at its very best, inaugurates whole new fields of scholarly inquiry. We will strive to create a catalogue in which groundbreaking work of a more narrow scope (regardless of discipline or field of interest) sits comfortably aside high quality work with general appeal. In this spirit we invite and will actively seek out work that reflects these values.

It is time, finally—a lifetime now removed from the evictions of the residents of White Bluffs and Hanford and the inception of the Manhattan Project—to gather together these diverse histories as part of a wholesale reconsideration of the events both large and small that irrevocably changed the course of human history. That Hanford, chosen largely because of its remoteness and its isolation, should play such a central and prominent role in those events is a paradox worthy of a scholarly tome in its own right. Yet no single volume, nor even a series of volumes written over the next decade, will tell the full story of what unfolded here over the last three-quarters of a century and beyond. That record will take ages for the historians to sort out.

The desire to provide a comprehensive accounting for such a multidimensional swath of history, even one as limited in geographic scope as this, will likely be perceived by many as idealistic at best or, less charitably, as hopelessly naïve. Yet the Hanford Histories series is, if nothing else, ambitious—as befits its subject. Moreover, there are good reasons to believe the time is ripe to launch such an ambitious project. From its beginning, secrecy prevailed at the processing facilities. Most workers were privy only to the operations of their highly segregated assignments. Security remained stringent during the ensuing years of the Cold War. Nor did a revamped mission do much to change things. Turning from production to cleanup, the site remained as secure, and as secretive, as ever. Through the decades, the archival and artifactual vestiges of our history—those once-upon-a-time cutting-edge technologies which suffered the inevitable indignity of obsolescence as they succumbed to ever more advanced technologies—remained locked away, sequestered behind the gates of one of the securest places in the country, out of sight and largely out of mind. But as the Cold War waned, and following the signing of the Tri-Party Agreement which created a comprehensive cleanup and compliance plan for the site in 1989, the shroud of secrecy began to lift. As records trickled out and as information began to become available, details of that clandestine history have emerged. While much of the story remains classified, the hard work of historical understanding has been underway for some time. Most importantly, the effort to tell the story of the Manhattan Project and Cold War received a tremendous boost when Congress enacted legislation at the end of 2014 creating the Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MAPR). That park is unique within the National Park System (NPS) because it is both co-managed by the U.S. Departments of Interior and Energy and co-located at the three primary Manhattan Project sites (Hanford, Washington; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee). Its charge is to preserve, interpret, and facilitate access to key historic resources associated with the Manhattan Project (www.nps.gov/mapr/foundation-document.htm). As our nation’s official storyteller, the Park Service, through MAPR, will provide the history of the people, events, science, and engineering that led to the creation of the atomic bomb. While not solely focused on the Manhattan Project, the Hanford Histories series seeks to complement the park in its interpretive mission in order to foster a better understanding of the profound historical lessons the nuclear program has to teach us—lessons about the grandeur of human ingenuity and perseverance on one hand and the calamity of human fallibility on the other.

All of us who are committed to the preservation and greater understanding of Hanford’s remarkable history owe a debt of gratitude to Washington State University Press: its editor-in-chief, Robert A. Clark; its director, Edward Sala; its editorial board; and its staff. In their vision and foresight they have recognized not only the significant value of this history but also, especially, the urgency in capturing and preserving the first-hand accounts of the witnesses to these events before they are lost altogether in the passage of time.

Michael Mays

Director, Hanford History Project

Washington State University Tri-Cities

INTRODUCTION

Making a History of It May Help

The Hanford Site and Its Spaces and Places of Meaning

Robert Franklin and Robert Bauman

When asked to explain why he thought conducting oral histories of former residents of the town of White Bluffs was important, Dick Wiehl, one of the first former residents of the Priest Rapids Valley interviewed by the Hanford Oral History Project, replied, "a town once started should live out its natural