A City Center Shaped by Wartime Growth
Downtown Kennewick
Kennewick wasn’t part of the Hanford Site, but it felt the impact. During WWII, the city’s downtown grew rapidly to serve the rising population of workers, families, and support staff flooding into the region.
A Home Front Economy in Full Swing
With the arrival of the Manhattan Project and the construction of Richland’s government town, surrounding cities like Kennewick had to adapt fast. Downtown Kennewick became a hub for commerce, services, and social life for those not directly housed in Richland or Pasco.
New storefronts opened, existing businesses expanded, and civic leaders scrambled to meet the housing and infrastructure needs of a growing population. Though not directly tied to classified work, Kennewick supported the home front by doing what many American towns did during wartime: absorbing the pressure and adapting with resilience.
Much of that growth is still visible in the downtown’s mid-century architecture, a physical reminder of a community that swelled to support something larger than itself.