Centro comercial Uptown
Life on the Home Front
Living, Working, and Making a Community During Wartime
While the Hanford Site worked in secrecy, everyday life in the Tri-Cities had to carry on, but nothing about it was ordinary.
Richland was a federally owned town, and life there was structured around supporting the war effort. Homes were assigned based on job roles and family size. The government provided everything: groceries, housing, utilities, and even entertainment. Churches, schools, theaters, and barber shops sprang up across this engineered town, creating a unique community where nearly every aspect of life was connected to a mission no one could talk about.
Workers and their families formed clubs, planted gardens, and lined up for rationed goods. Children played in parks built by the Army Corps of Engineers. Locals shopped at converted warehouses, attended services at long-standing churches in Pasco and Kennewick, and saw films that promoted national unity and sacrifice.
Beyond Richland, life in the surrounding cities adapted too - with military families, support staff, and contractors arriving in waves. Community resilience, volunteerism, and shared purpose defined this time.
These stories, of resilience, of routine under pressure, of normal life in an extraordinary town, are just as much a part of WWII history as the science and steel.
