RICHLAND, Wash. – A coalition of groups from southeast Washington is collecting oral histories about the the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and communities around it -- from pioneer days to post-war-cleanup. An announcement was made Tuesday by Washington State University Tri-Cities and 10 other community groups.
The project team intends to collect new interviews, digitize existing ones and make them available online and at the university in a permanent collection.
Robert Bauman, a history professor at WSU, is leading the project. He says some oral histories are decades old and exist only on cassette tapes.
“I’ve seen them in like shoe boxes," Bauman says. "There is probably great information on there but they’re completely unusable.”
Bauman says the collection will be available to scholars and local students alike -- anyone who wants to learn about Hanford.
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People with stories about Hanford or the surrounding areas are encouraged to contact the project via email at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu or by phone at 509-372-7306.
On the Web:
Hanford History Partnership - Washington State University Tri-Cities
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