Day 7 – 7/14/25 (Monday) Richland

 Day started with the tour of Richland at 9:15 am. This little town has a surprisingly fascinating history. During World War II, it was home to the Hanford Project, which was part of Manhattan Project. It played a crucial role in the Manhattan Project by producing plutonium for the first atomic bombs. The Hanford site was selected for its isolation, access to water and electricity, and ability to build and operate top-secret plutonium production facilities. Reactors at Hanford produced the plutonium used in the Trinity test and the "Fat Man" bomb dropped on Nagasaki. When the construction of the Hanford complex began in March 1943, it was a remote, desolate area. The Atomic Energy Commission had acquired 670 square miles of land in the Hanford area for a project related to the war effort, but that was all that was known. The Hanford Engineer Works employed thousands of people in a secret project. These people needed housing so a planned community called Richland was created. Formerly a small agricultural village, by 1944 Richland was transformed into a bedroom community of 12,000 atomic workers and their families. DuPont and the Army selected the Spokane architect Gustav Albin Pehrson to plan and oversee the development of an entire community consisting of hundreds of single- and multi-family houses known as alphabet houses. The design of the new community tried to follow the existing land contours and tried to save the existing trees (cottonwoods, willows, and black locust trees) and old fruit orchards. It was decided to identify the different housing units by the letters of the alphabet. “A” houses were three-bedroom two-story duplexes, “B” and “T” houses were two-bedroom single-story duplexes, and “C” was also a single-story two-bedroom duplex with a different floor plan. “D”, “F”, “G”, “L”, and “S” were two-story, single-family houses with three to four bedrooms with different exterior designs, houses “E”, “H”, “K”, “M”, “Q”. “R”, “U”, “Y”, and “V” are all single-family one-story homes with different exterior designs. These houses are still there and people live in them. Our guide’s parents lived in an A house, and he and his family are living in an F house.

Plutonium was produced in Hartford/Richland until 1989, and the whole area was very contaminated. They started cleaning it up in 1989, and the cleanup still continues. The city continues to have a strong research base, but also a lot or agriculture around (mostly apples, pears, cherries and grapes). There is a beautiful and very long biking/walking path along the river. We also visited an interesting museum with lots of information about the Hanford project and the area.

 

In the afternoon there was an excursion to wineries, but we opted not to go since the temperature was over 100F and drinking wine in this heat was not appealing. We tried to walk in the park along the river, but it was too hot even for that. 

Social score: lunch – big win – a very fun couple from near St. Louis  - lots of stories about hunting, gardening, animals…

Dinner – win – two sisters from a weird town called Texarcana – whom we met the first day

Entertainment: cowboy/country music duo (2 guys) – the audience knew most of the songs (we didn’t) and sang along.