Badger Club to discuss Hanford’s Camp Columbia | Guest Opinion

Bob Taylor was born and raised in the federal prison system.

And part of that unconventional youth was tied to a little-known piece of Hanford history — Camp Columbia, a World War II-era prison at what is now Horn Rapids Park north of Richland.

Camp Columbia, which was on the Yakima River — not the Columbia — housed minimum-security wartime prisoners who indirectly helped Hanford create the atomic bomb. A few signs and crumbling foundations at the park today are the only hint of the historic site.

Taylor, now a Richland resident after many years away, will tell his intriguing story during the online annual meeting of the Columbia Basin Badger Club at 7 p.m. Jan. 21. The club, which is dedicated to civil discourse on issues of the day, will be taking a trip back to the days when Americans united to win WWII.

Camp Columbia was a byproduct of the government’s takeover of some 430,000 acres along the Columbia River to build the highly secretive weapons complex that helped end the war in the Pacific.

Almost overnight in early 1943, the government evicted residents along the Columbia from Richland to Vernita. That included what were then the towns of Hanford and White Bluffs and more than 1,000 acres of farms and orchards.

Army officials spearheading the Manhattan Project intended to let the farms dry up back to sagebrush, but the evicted residents gained the Roosevelt Administration’s attention.

There’s a war going on and food shortages, they argued, so how did it make sense to destroy those farms?

Army officials, however, opposed residents returning to farm because of security concerns. They proposed having prisoners operate those farms.

Quickly, a complex of Quonset huts and prefab homes was developed at Horn Rapids under contract to Federal Prison Industries. And Harold E. Taylor, then a lieutenant at the state’s McNeil Island Prison, was tapped as its superintendent, arriving in January 1944.

The camp opened Feb. 1, and Taylor moved his wife and 6-year-old Bob there on June 6, 1944 — coincidentally D Day in Europe. Bob recalls their reception featured a so-called “Termination Wind” dust storm that Hanford was infamous for, blinding storms that prompted many workers to quit on the spot.

The prison housed as many as 290 prisoners at a time — some 1,300 total before it was closed Oct. 10, 1947. The prisoners — most conscientious objectors or violators of wartime regulations brought from McNeil Island — were supervised by some 50 officers. Together they operated 550 acres of orchards, 125 acres of vineyards, and about 350 acres of hay, potatoes and asparagus. Those crops were packaged and shipped to the military.

The Taylors initially lived onsite in a drafty Quonset hut before being upgraded to a 609-square-foot “luxury” prefab home. Bob spent his days on the prison grounds or in schools in Richland where he was bused to with other camp staff children.

For a boy whose father began prison work as a guard, it didn’t seem unusual. But, like all government employee families at the secretive Hanford site, the kids knew not to talk about what their fathers did.

In 1994 after his father died and his mother was in an Issaquah nursing home, Bob and his wife Dianne cleaned out his parents’ home and found a trove of photos from those days. He’ll share those during his presentation, along his memories of a kid growing up in prison.

To attend the Zoom online presentation, register at the club’s website, columbiabasinbadgers.com, to receive a confirmation email with a link to join the meeting. Cost is $5 for nonmembers. There is no charge for club members, who receive a $5 discount for forums.

This story was originally published January 18, 2021 at 12:01 PM with the headline "Badger Club to discuss Hanford’s Camp Columbia | Guest Opinion."