Hanford's first kids

This small book covers a time period from 1943 through 1950 in the city of Richland. It is an accumulation of recollections from someone who as a neighborhood boy of three in 1943 can remember today. It was Richland as I observed it through 1950 and remember it. A lot of older people have written about early Hanford life and for the most part it was not the life I remember. Obviously because I am not them and everyone living in Richland at this time period had different life styles and now different memories. This being a very good time in my life, it was not always like a lot of others remember it. These memories of course through the eyes of a young boy. Ironically, my mother remembered it just like I did, with the exception of course of my mischievousness she was not totally aware of. When I say mischievous pertaining to the boys in the neighborhood, I don't mean anything destructive, violent or mean in nature. You have heard "Boys will be boys," well that was us they were talking about. It was a little more earthy in the area where I lived than a lot of people's descriptions. Before the Manhattan Project and the establishment of Hanford Operations, Richland was a farming community in an arid part of Washington. Farming was only possible due to water for crops from the Yakima and Columbia Rivers and farming only occurred where these waters could be transported from the rivers. The general area of what we now call the Columbia Basin and a lot of the Yakima valley, was as it had been for thousands of years, little more than a desert. Other than for dryland wheat, the areas under cultivation lined the rivers and were in close proximity to them. Both the Columbia River and the Yakima River experienced heavy annual flooding and due to this as well as the ground containing large rocks and gravel, much of it made farming impossible. If looking from overhead at this area at the time, one would see farms next to the Columbia River west of Pasco and near the river. Not far west of Pasco the desert sagebrush started and continued on the east side of the river from there on with orchards at Ringold. There were some farms near old downtown Kennewick and the Finley area and a long stretch of rough terrain with a few homes and businesses between the Richland Y and on Bateman Island there were asparagus fields under cultivation. The Yakima River delta was a flood zone and covered with natural Timothy grass or hay that some harvested for livestock. The town of Richland was a small business area surrounded by orchards, vineyards, asparagus fields and from the top of Carmichael hill to the west was orchards and sagebrush . North of Richland were farms nearing to where 300 Area was located and then it was sagebrush and sand dunes until nearing the old White Bluffs town site many miles upstream. Other than what history I have read about this area, how do I know this? Well, there isn't an inch of it I haven't seen, and the old irrigation ditches, Yakima River dam remains and old farming furrows in the ground tell the story. This was a time when the remnants of the Wanapum Indian people visited the now West Richland area and had a burial site there.