Franklin County Historical Museum

During World War II, Pasco experienced a dramatic population boom as workers arrived to support the Hanford Site and related military efforts. The museum’s exhibits chronicle this influx, especially the stories of Black laborers who were recruited for wartime work but faced segregated housing and services upon arrival.

Photographs, oral histories, and documents shed light on both opportunity and exclusion. East Pasco, in particular, became a cultural and economic center for Black residents building lives in the face of systemic discrimination.

By highlighting these layered histories, the museum expands the narrative beyond science and infrastructure to include the communities shaped by the war effort; people whose labor powered the Manhattan Project even when their names were left out of official accounts.