pounds, laid the ground for the massive atomic establishment America was soon to develop. Because the atomic industry would end up being staffed not by world-renowned physicists but by ordinary engineers and technicians, Hanford became the prototype for a nuclear future in terms of human as well as technical arrangements. To “tame” atomic processes was to bring them from the realm of the unexplored to that of the pedestrian and routine. The Tinkerers Clark Reitnauer transferred to Hanford in March of 1944 from Du Pont’s heavy-water plant in Morgantown, West Virginia. A supervisor there had already taught him about high-level security by telling him, “One word about what we’re doing here, and I’ll have you incarcerated for the rest of the war.” When his wife suggested, out of the blue, that Hanford might be making an atom bomb, he envisioned her telling people and himself jailed, then spent three days explaining how she was being ridiculous. Clark began here building special planes and lathes to fabricate the B, D and F reactor graphite, then worked on a variety of radiation-monitoring instruments, including the one abortively named “Pluto.” Although he came to Hanford without a college background — he supplemented his high school education with night school and correspondence courses in mechanical engineering — Clark developed 16 patents and was a senior engineer at United Nuclear by the time he retired in 1977. When I asked if working with atomic reactions differed from basement tinkering, Clark said it was at first “a little mystifying and scary.” But he adjusted quickly to entering hot zones so he could test the new systems he’d developed. He knew the dose limits were sufficiently low so no hazard existed. Even the year he was high man in terms of exposure didn’t really worry him. “I guess the monitors must have metered me wrong,” Clark explained when I asked how this happened, but he said the annual dose allowable was normally three REMs and five as an absolute limit (REM stands for Roentgen Equivalent Man — a unit of radiation exposure that factors in the biological damage created by different radioactive emissions) — and that the dosimeter in his badge indicated In December of 1958, Richland became its own incorporated town at a ceremony attended by Governor Albert Rossellini and Senators Henry ‘(Scoop’’ Jackson and Warren Magnuson and capped by the setting off of a mock atomic bomb. he’d ended up with more than five. Since the international limit was 15, that didn’t bother him. “But they had to file an AEC report, and they called me on the carpet just as if I’d broken the traffic laws by speeding.” An Ideal Family Town Despite the massive military enterprise supporting it, to its residents Richland was the atomic age equivalent of a homey small town. Since no one was allowed to live here except Hanford employees, their families and a few merchants running stores under government contract, Richland had no poor, no old and no unemployed. Crime was almost nonesis- tent — from 1945 to 1947 the local jail did not hold a single prisoner. Richland even had its own mascot, a jaunty potato-headed cartoon figure in overalls named Dupus Boomer (Dupus referring to Du Pont), who appeared each week in the Richland Villager, chasing after the trash cans which the termination winds blew down the block, looking out at the desert while his kid asked, “Pop, how far away are we from the United States?” and joking with the local barber about all the “long-hair” scientists in town. That Hanford’s workers considered themselves “a fine class of people” testified not to any snobbery, but to optimism and innocence. In a 1952 League of Women Voters survey only half the respondents considered Richland their permanent home. But just as Hanford’s plutonium manufacture became routine, so Richland slowly shed its makeshift character and began striving, almost like Pinocchio, to become a real town in the mainstream world. At times this desire took the form of strutting. Atomic Frontier Days began in 1948 as an annual Westernstyle celebration. Movie stars visited, the men put on fake beards and held a male beauty contest, and local organizations used wire, crepe paper and paint to turn cars and trucks into elaborate floats. A diaper service built a huge winged stork. Mother Hubbard and her children proclaimed the merits of a shoe store. Members of Rainbow Girls dressed in an array of spectacular hues. Judges picked Miss Richland, one year selecting local belle and future Hollywood actress Sharon Tate. The Navy’s Blue Angel jets performed acrobatics overhead. A ground parade showcased tanks, howitzers and Nike missiles from the protective base on top of Rattlesnake Mountain; the high school sports teams, the Richland Bombers, rode by in their yellow and green colors displaying a finned metal bomb. Gradually Richland moved toward becoming a normal single-industry town. Electric meters were installed, then water meters. A 1955 advisory ballot on self-government lost by 500 votes. The AEC decided to sell the property anyway, for 50 percent of appraised value and, in 1956, 1500 residents gathered at the Bomber Bowl to protest the appraisals running too high. A delegation flew to Washington, D.C., to work out compromise prices. The houses were finally offered at bargain rates. In December of 1958, Richland became its own incorporated town at a ceremony attended by Governor Albert Rossellini and Senators Henry “Scoop” Jackson and Warren Magnuson and capped by the setting off of a mock atomic bomb. Because Richland was in part just a 316 S.W. 9th mon-fri 11 to 7 223-0767 sat 12 to 7 Mw - more than just quality '30$ and '40$ Schlock, i.e., clothes, collectables & even some usable items, but soon to offer Custom-Made Neon Signs! Over 150 used neon units in stock! i % B 4 ' .& ? 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