Honoring Those Displaced by Uranium’s Rise
Prosser Cemetery
Located in Prosser, this cemetery became the reinterment site for the White Bluffs community when Hanford was built. It preserves the memory of lives uprooted, and graves moved, as part of one of the largest displacement operations in U.S. history during World War II.
Where the White Bluffs Cemetery Found a New Home
In spring 1943, as land was seized for the construction of the Hanford Site (then called the Hanford Engineer Works), residents of White Bluffs were forced to evacuate within weeks. Nearly 177 caskets from the town’s cemetery were relocated to East Prosser Cemetery on May 6, 1943, following community-led decisions handled by the White Bluffs Cemetery Association.
The federal government paid for the exhumation and reinterment via Hamilton’s Mortuary, and markers—including concrete flush stones for unmarked graves—were installed. Families were given plot space in Prosser at no cost, with options to pay for adjacent plots if they wished. Although other nearby cemeteries were considered, Prosser emerged as the chosen site after negotiations over cost and availability.
Today, Prosser Cemetery stands as a solemn testament to the human cost of wartime expansion. The relocated graves serve as enduring symbols of communities erased for the sake of scientific and military urgency; inviting reflection on sacrifice, displacement, and memory in the atomic age.