Hanford history

By 1950, 20% of Pasco’s approximately 10,000 residents were Black, almost all living in slum conditions. Few lived in the new atomic community of Richland and none in “lily-white” Kennewick -- a fact of which Kennewick city leaders and police at the time were proud. Not only was housing segregated, but Black residents were forced to endure broad discrimination in employment and education.

Denin Koch's trip to the Hanford B Reactor when he was 19 stirred his musical passion. It eventually inspired a full jazz album exploring the complicated history of Hanford, 75 years after the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan ended WWII.

The creators of a new musical work called “Nuclear Dreams” highlight the dreams and nightmares of people who work and live near Hanford in Washington’s Tri-Cities.

PHOTO: Anna King interviewing Jane Hedges, the now-retired head of Washington Ecology’s Hanford office. Hedges grew up swimming off the docks in Richland,…

In 1943, the Hanford Site was selected as the newest location for the top-secret Manhattan Project and began 75 years of innovation, discovery and…