Native Americans

  Well I was very young at the time. I went down there in 1943, down to Oak Ridge, TN.   They were interviewing at Princeton where I was going to school. They guys said that they had a very important war project going on down there. And I said, “Oh what’s it all about?”  […]

Cindy Kelly: I am Cindy Kelly with Atomic Heritage Foundation and it is Wednesday, July 31, 2013 and I am with Ellen Bradbury Reid. My first question for Ellen is to please tell us your name and spell it.  Ellen Bradbury Reid: Ellen Bradbury Reid. Actually I was Ellen Wilder, and then I married John […]

[At the top is the edited version of the interview published by S. L. Sanger in Working on the Bomb: An Oral History of WWII Hanford, Portland State University, 1995. For the full transcript that matches the audio of the interview, please scroll down.] Book version: I thought the Hanford site was perfect the first time I […]

[Interviewed by Robert W. Mull, from S.L. Sanger’s Working on the Bomb: An Oral History of WWII Hanford, Portland State University, 1995] We used to live in the tules (reed huts) until spring, then we take them apart, put them away and we move. First we move after the root feasts, clear up to Soap Lake […]

[Interviewed by Cynthia Kelly, Tom Zannes, and Thomas E. Marceau.] Veronica Taylor: I’m Veronica Taylor, one of the elders for the Nez Perce tribe and I work in the environmental restoration management program for the Nez Perce. One they call the community liaison. Tell me what the Columbia River means to your tribe? Taylor: Well, the […]

Theresa Strottman: It’s Saturday March 21, 1992, and it’s approximately 10:20 in the morning.  We are speaking with Jerry Roensch.  We thank you so much for coming this morning. Eleanor (Jerry) Roensch: My pleasure. Strottman: To start off the interview, I wonder if you could briefly tell me when and where you were born and a little […]

[Interviewed by Cynthia Kelly, Tom Zannes, and Thomas E. Marceau.] Tell us your name. Rex Buck, Jr.: My name is Rex Buck, Jr. R-E-X B-U-C-K J-R. What’s your Wanapum Indian name? Buck: My Wanapum Indian name is Puckhyahtoot. Can you spell that? Buck: P-U-C-K-H-Y-A-H-T-O-O-T. What does that mean? Buck: That means, like, a bunch of birds […]

Hanford, Washington, on the beautiful Columbia River, was the site selected for the full-scale plutonium production plant, the B Reactor. Today a popular tourist desination, the Hanford Site proved crucial to the success of the Manhattan Project.  Site Selection In December 1942, the Army Corps of Engineers worked with DuPont to establish criteria for the […]