Albert Einstein wrote a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt encouraging him to speed up the experimental work in nuclear chain reactions to construct bombs- extremely powerful bombs, and it couldn’t be uranium; it was too heavy and in poor supply in the United States. A reactor was necessary to produce plutonium necessary for the atomic bomb. World War II was raging and Einstein had a solution the president needed to hear about.
Thus began the construction of the B Reactor, built in secret and in a hurry. A secret on a monumental scale, 51,000 employees worked on the project in the middle of nowhere north of Richland, Washington.
It was just amazing that a secret of that magnitude could remain a secret. The logistics of keeping all those employees fed and housed in the middle of nowhere was astounding; eight mess halls the size of football fields served daily, 120 tons of potatoes daily, 9,600 pounds of onions, 8,000 pounds of coffee, 250,000 pounds of meat were used in one week, 7,200 pies for one meal.
With amazing speed, especially for government work, the world’s first large-scale nuclear reactor was completed on September 26, 1944 in just eleven months with the blueprints showing up for the project after it began operating!
The B Reactor caused America to emerge from World War II as a nuclear power and a world leader and changed the global balance of power for all time. The reactor produced the plutonium necessary for Fat Man, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki and the Trinity bomb detonated in Alamogordo, New Mexico and arguably played a key role in ending World War II
Just one year ago the B Reactor was designated as a National Historic Landmark, the highest designation in the United States for historic properties.
The tours of the reactor are free but they are overwhelmingly popular filling within minutes of being available and you must be 18 or older to go on the tour. The drive out and back to the site plus the tour takes about 4 hours. This amazing bit of history is right here in my backyard!
I love to get a glimpse into Dad’s secret life of work! I want to go on a tour!
Andrew looks right at home
Gary and I were able to score tickets for the B reactor tour a few years ago. The Hanford story is so remarkable, I can scarcely believe I grew up 150 miles away never hearing about it!
Coming from Massachusetts I learned a lot about the American Revolution and how the north was right about the Civil War, but the Manhattan project and Lewis and Clark were all new history to me when I moved out west; but to have this bit of history such a short distance from home really deserves a visit!
Do you want to take me when I’m out there?