Local Area History

The areas encompassing the lower Columbia Basin were occupied by the Smohalla, Wanapum, and other Native-American tribes for thousands of years before the white man appeared on the scene. The first white men through the area were Lewis and Clark on their cross-country expedition in 1805-1806. Up until the mid-19th century, the only white presence were explorers, fur traders, missionaries, travelers and soldiers that were passing through to other destinations. Permanent settlement of the area did not begin until after 1858, when military orders barring settlement east of the Cascades were lifted and local Native-American tribes were subjugated by ceding their lands in the Treaty Council of 1855. Although the Native-Americans resisted white settlement, disease eventually reduced their numbers to the point where they no longer were perceived as a threat to settlement.

Because of the aridity of the area (in many places less than 10 inches of rain a year), settlement was very slow. An establishment of a wagon road in 1858 between Fort Walla Walla and Fort Benton helped provide a much needed transportation route for immigrants traveling to the Washington Territory. When the gold rush of the late 1850s occurred in British Columbia, many permanent settlements began to be established, such as the town of White Bluffs on the Columbia River. The main purpose of these settlements were to provide supplies to miners traveling though the area.

A cattle and sheep industry grew up in the area starting in the 1860s. Much of the meat and goods from this industry found its way to the gold rush towns in British Columbia. When the gold rush collapsed in the late 1860s, demand for beef was substantially cut, and by the 1870s, the cattle industry had all but died out. However, sheep became increasingly more important and replaced cattle as a major business in the area in the last few decades of the 1800s.

When the railroad arrived in the area in the 1880s, ranching was in a rapid decline and was replaced by farming. Overgrazing of land was one factor that helped bring about this change. Starting with the first major irrigation project, instigated by the Yakima Irrigation and Improvement Company in 1892, farming produced a mini boom in the area, lasting until the early teens of the 1900s. However, early on, irrigation water supply was spotty due to breaks in irrigation canals and financial trouble. It wasn't until the Newlands Reclamation Act of June 17, 1902 that large-scale, reliable, irrigation and farming began to take place and major settlement began in the area. The towns of Richland, Hanford, Kennewick, Finley, and Hover all sprang up in the first decade of the 20th century as a result of the farming boom.

During the 1920s, farmers were getting less and less for their produce because of a post WWI economic slump, and the local economy slowed. When the great depression hit in the 1930s, growth slowed to a crawl. It was during this time that some towns, such as Hover, dried up and almost disappeared (some died altogether). Things would change though, with the coming of WWII.

In 1943, the government established the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and in the process, displaced all of the individuals living in the towns of White Bluffs, Hanford and Richland. All private land was bought out by the government. The town of Richland was saved, but White Bluffs and Hanford were razed to the ground and became ghost towns. The cities of Kennewick and Richland then experienced massive growth as thousands of Hanford workers poured onto the scene. Housing shortages were dire with nearly every livable space being used (in some cases, even chicken coups).

Richland became a government town and a huge construction project began to build thousands of homes, apartment buildings and government offices. Because of the need to build things quickly, there was a limited set of blueprints drawn up, and multiple copies of the same house were built en-mass. Kennewick remained privately owned, but grew as fast as Richland, eventually becoming the largest of the Tri-Cities (Richland, Kennewick and Pasco).

Throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s, growth continued and the local economy remained strong. However, growth in the area slowed in the 1980s as government cutbacks at the Hanford site resulted in mass layoffs. Currently, the Tri-Cities as a whole are experiencing renewed economic vitality as the local economy is diversifying with agriculture and service businesses having the fastest growth.

-Article by Jeremy Wells, July 2000


Sources and additional links:

http://www.hanford.gov/doe/culres/mpd/sec4.htm#4.0; Euro-American Resettlement Of The Hanford Site, Washington; by J. C. Bard and J. B. Cox.

http://www.co.benton.wa.us/html/general_info.htm; Benton County History, General Information