Hayden Rector was a contract attorney for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Hanford, WA during the Manhattan Project.
Rector was born in 1914 in Columbus, Ohio. An attorney in Mobile, AL, Rector was hired as a contract attorney for the Army Corps of Engineers and reported to Richland, WA in 1943. He was an assistant to Col. Franklin Matthias from 1943 to 1945 providing legal advice on contracts and other matters, as well as working on entertainment programming for workers. He also served as a media liaison in the days and weeks following the announcement that Hanford produced the plutonium for the Nagasaki atomic bomb.
Rector also was the founder of Villagers Inc., an association of the citizens of Richland. His wife Jaqueline Rector joined him in Richland in 1943, but left in 1945. His daughter Kenyon Hayden Rector was born in Richland on December 23, 1944.
Hayden Rector passed away in 1972. You can view letters Rector sent to Jaqueline from Hanford here and here.
Thanks to Bradley Stephenson, Hayden Rector’s grandson, for contributing information to this profile.