Manhattan Project History

     Moving the pilot plutonium plant to Oak Ridge left too little room for the full-scale production plant at the X-10 site and also left too little generating power for yet another major facility.  Furthermore, the site was uncomfortably close to Knoxville should a major catastrophe occur.  Thus the search for an alternate location for the full-scale plutonium facilities began soon after DuPont joined the production team.  Compton's scientists needed an area of approximately 225 square miles.  Three or four pile reactors and one or two chemical separation complexes would be at least a mile apart for security and safety purposes, while nothing would be allowed within four miles of the separation complexes for fear of radioactive accidents.  All towns, highways, rail lines, and laboratories would be several miles further away.

     December 16, 1942 found Col. Franklin T. Matthias of Groves' staff and two DuPont engineers headed for the Pacific Northwest and southern California to investigate possible production sites.  Of the possible sites available, none had a better combination of isolation, long construction season, and abundant water for hydroelectric power than those found along the Columbia and Colorado Rivers.  After viewing six locations in Washington, Oregon and California, the group agreed that the area around Hanford, Washington, best met the criteria established by the Met Lab scientists and DuPont engineers.

     The Grand Coulee and Bonneville Dams offered substantial hydroelectric power, while the flat but rocky terrain would provide excellent support for the massive plutonium production buildings.  The ample site of nearly 500,000 acres was far enough inland to meet security requirements, while existing transportation facilities could quickly be improved and labor was readily available.  Pleased with the committee's unanimous report, Groves accepted its recommendation and authorized the establishment of the Hanford Engineer Works, codenamed Site W.

     Now that DuPont would be building the plutonium production complex in the Northwest, Compton saw no reason for any pile facilities at Oak Ridge and proposed to conduct Met Lab research in either Chicago or Argonne.  DuPont on the other hand, continued to support a semi-works at Oak Ridge and asked the Met Lab scientists to operate it.  Compton demurred on the grounds he did not have sufficient technical staff, but he was also reluctant because his scientists were complaining that their laboratory was becoming little more than a subsidiary of DuPont.  In the end, Compton knew the Met Lab would have to support DuPont, which simply did not have sufficient expertise to operate the semi-works on its own.  The University of Chicago administration supported Compton's decision in early March.

     Colonel Matthias returned to the Hanford area to set up a temporary office on February 22, 1943.  His orders were to purchase half a million acres in and around the Hanford-Pasco-White Bluffs area, a sparsely populated region where sheep ranching and farming were the primary economic activities.  Many of the landowners rejected initial offers on their land and took the Army to court seeking more acceptable appraisals.  Matthias adopted a strategy of settling out of court to save time, time being a more important commodity than money to the Manhattan Project.

     Matthias received his major assignment in late March of 1943.  The three water-cooled piles, designated by the letters B, D, and F, would be built about six miles apart on the south bank of the Columbia River.  The four chemical separation plants , built in pairs, would be nearly ten miles south of the piles, while a facility to produce uranium slugs and perform tests would be approximately twenty miles southeast of the separation plants near Richland, WA.  Temporary quarters for more than 45,000 construction workers would be put up in Hanford, while permanent facilities for other personnel would be located down the road in Richland, safely removed from the production and separation plants.

     During the summer of 1943, Hanford became the Manhattan Project's newest boomtown.  Thousands of workers poured into the town, many of them to leave in discontent.  Well situated from a logistical point of view, Hanford was a sea of tents and barracks where workers had little to do and nowhere to go.  DuPont and the Army coordinated efforts to recruit laborers from all over the country for Hanford, but even with a relative labor surplus in the Pacific Northwest, shortages plagued the project.  Conditions improved significantly during the second half of the year, with the addition of recreational facilities, higher pay, and better overall services for Hanford's population, which reached 50,000 by the summer of 1944.  To many, Hanford still resembled the frontier and mining towns once common in the west, but the rate of worker turnover dropped substantially.

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