Vernita Safety Rest Area

This rest area is an oasis in the otherwise barren landscape surrounding the Hanford Site.

NPS/BURGHART

Quick Facts

Location:

Mattawa, WA

MANAGED BY:

Washington Department of Transportation

Amenities

4 listed

Food/Drink - Vending Machine/Self Service, Picnic Table, Restroom, Water - Drinking/Potable

Aside from a busy highway and a quick rest stop for travelers headed elsewhere, the landscape here appears wild and empty. Through the centuries, though, people have developed vibrant communities here. Before the Manhattan Project, Native Americans, white settlers, and Chinese immigrant gold miners all made their home close to this rest area. 

A ferry used by sheep ranchers before the Manhattan Project was just downstream from the highway bridge. Just upstream was the small agricultural hamlet of Arrowsmith, composed largely of homesteaders. Native Americans regularly used this area as a seasonal fishing camp, taking advantage of the massive salmon runs headed to spawning sites throughout the Columbia River drainage. In the mid-1800s, a Chinese immigrant community operated hydraulic gold mines along the riverfront using water from the Columbia River.  

Extensive irrigation works enabled settlers in the late 1800s and early 1900s to build the farming communities of White Bluffs and Hanford on nearby land.  People in these agricultural communities regularly interacted with their indigenous neighbors, worked long and strenuous hours, and enjoyed hunting, fishing, and swimming in the Columbia River. 

The federal government claimed this land and displaced these communities through eminent domain to build plutonium production facilities for the Manhattan Project.  Today, few traces remain of the places these people called home. Today,  much of the land is now part of the Hanford Reach National Monument. From the rest area, you can see the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, whose creation eliminated a cherished way of life for the people who lived near the Vernita Safety Rest Area.   

The Vernita Safety Rest Area is a great place to take a break, launch your boat, or enjoy a picnic by the water. You can see and explore the landscape that generations of Native Americans cherished and that inspired settlers to transform into a farming center. 

The Department of Energy offers Pre-War Historic Sites Tours on the Hanford Site, where you can explore such sites 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.