Manhattan Project National Historical Park
The Manhattan Project National Historical Park offers free seasonal bus tours telling the history of life before early residents and settlers were forced to leave their farms, homes and businesses to make way for the top-secret production of plutonium. At the start of Manhattan Project work, about 1,500 residents in the agricultural towns of Hanford and White Bluffs were displaced from their homesteads and orchards, along with Native American Tribes, as the government transformed the Eastern Washington desert as part of the secret war project.
The tour includes bus stops, interpretation, and a short walking tour at each of the few buildings remaining from the farms and orchards along the Columbia River and the small towns of Hanford and White Bluffs. Buildings include the stone Bruggemann Warehouse, the remains of the 1916 Hanford High School, the tiny First Bank of White Bluffs and the 1908 Hanford Irrigation District Pump House.
Tour Details