Nowhere to Remember

Book excerpt: Drawn from Hanford History Project personal narratives, Nowhere to Remember highlights life in Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland--three small eastern Washington agricultural communities where Euro-American settlers transformed acres of sagebrush into fruit orchards and neighbors helped neighbors. But in 1943, families received evacuation orders, and Manhattan Project restrictions meant they could not return. Covering settlement and development, the arrival of irrigation, dependence on railroads, Great Depression struggles, and World War II-era experiences, the volume examines regional trade and transportation within the context of American West history. It also details the tight bonds between early residents and early twentieth century experiences of the region's women, utilizes oral histories to tell forced removal stories, and finally, conveys displaced occupants' reactions to their loss.