Last updated: January 17, 2023
Place
Prosser Cemetery
NPS/BURGHART
Quick Facts
Location:
Prosser, WA
MANAGED BY:
Prosser Cemetery Association
In 1905, when Ed Helsom died from tuberculosis and was buried on his property in White Bluffs, few could have imagined that all residents, including the deceased, of this tiny hamlet would be moved to make way for a top-secret government project. Mr. Helsom’s land eventually became the White Bluffs cemetery for several decades, until the arrival of the Manhattan Project.
Removed from their homes in 1943, along with other settlers in Hanford and Richland, White Bluffs residents hastily gathered their belongings and uprooted their lives to provide land for the Manhattan Project. On May 6, 1943, 177 caskets from the White Bluffs Cemetery, were moved from their original resting place to a section of the Prosser Cemetery dedicated to the reinterred remains by the Manhattan Project personnel. Later, the remains of five additional White Bluffs residents were found and reinterred in Prosser. These graves, which descendants paid for after the move, are a space where the descendants of White Bluffs settlers can commemorate their loved ones and connect with their displaced community.
Removed from their homes in 1943, along with other settlers in Hanford and Richland, White Bluffs residents hastily gathered their belongings and uprooted their lives to provide land for the Manhattan Project. On May 6, 1943, 177 caskets from the White Bluffs Cemetery, were moved from their original resting place to a section of the Prosser Cemetery dedicated to the reinterred remains by the Manhattan Project personnel. Later, the remains of five additional White Bluffs residents were found and reinterred in Prosser. These graves, which descendants paid for after the move, are a space where the descendants of White Bluffs settlers can commemorate their loved ones and connect with their displaced community.
Continue Your Journey
The Department of Energy offers tours of the B Reactor and the Pre-War Historic Sites Tour that visit sites such as the Bruggemann Ranch, the White Bluffs Bank, Hanford High School, and the Allard Pumphouse where local people lived, worked, and came together as a tight-knit community prior to the arrival of the Manhattan Project.
If you are unable to attend one of these tours you, can see the former White Bluffs community from the White Bluffs Overlook, and the Hanford High School Overlook from the White Bluffs trail on the Hanford Reach National Monument.