Hanford High School Overlook

From the Hanford High School Overlook, you can see the remains of the small town of Hanford.

© REBECCA BURGHART

Quick Facts

Location:

Mattawa, WA

MANAGED BY:

Hanford Reach National Monument

Amenities

1 listed

Trailhead

From this site within the Hanford Reach National Monument, you can look across the Columbia River and see where the community of Hanford stood before being displaced by the Manhattan Project. Now home to nesting osprey and bald eagles, this site’s tranquility hides the story of a vibrant farming community transformed into a bustling, noisy, and dusty construction camp for Manhattan Project workers.   
 
During the Manhattan Project’s heyday, the Hanford Construction Camp, a hastily built, temporary metropolis of 40-50,000 people, surrounded the Hanford High School. Most of the workers who built and operated the Hanford Site lived in the camp. For a brief time, it was Washington State’s third largest city. The camp was dismantled and abandoned after completion of Hanford’s plutonium production and processing facilities.  

 As you look across the landscape, few remnants of this massive community are evident to the naked eye. The only surviving building from the town of Hanford is the high school, the shell of which you can see across the river. Closer inspection of the landscape reveals traces of roads and irrigation features. These artifacts remind us of the deep and lasting ways in which the Manhattan Project permanently and drastically changed the communities in which it operated. 

Continue Your Journey

The White Bluffs - South Slope Trail on the Hanford Reach National Monument provides one of the best views of the old Hanford townsite and location of the huge construction camp for the Manhattan Project. The trail rewards hikers with expansive views of the Hanford Site and opportunities to explore the White Bluffs geologic formation up close. This is also an excellent trail for birders and wildlife watchers. This trail has no drinking water or shade and is very hot in summer. 
 
The Department of Energy offers tours of B Reactor, as well as the Pre-War Historic Sites Tour that visits places such as the Bruggemann Ranch, the White Bluffs Bank, Hanford High School, and the Allard Pumphouse, where local people lived, worked, and came together as a tight-knit community before the Manhattan Project.