(1998) Depot brings dramatic changes to town

Depot brings dramatic changes to town By Frank Lockwood, page 6, Vision 2000, The Hermiston Herald, Tuesday, December 1, 1998


In just one year, from 1940 to 1941, Hermiston changed from a desert village of about 800 people into a boom town with 7,000 workers hammering, shoveling and pouring concrete to build the world's largest munitions depot in record time. The Umatilla Ordnance Depot has since been renamed several times and is now the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

The influx of construction workers overwhelmed local businesses and government. At times the local taverns had to shut down when they ran completely out of beer; it was strictly first come, first served.

Notes in Army archives described the town:

"Men who came and got work (had) $100 a week to spend. Their attempts to spend it made this peaceful village overnight into an overgrown carnival working a 24-hour shift. Hastily-erected lunch rooms and hot dog stands, soft drink and beer establishments, a movie, grocery stores, shoeshine stands, and meat markets played to long waiting lines.

"Living spaces became a luxury. Householders rented spare rooms, then rented front lawns and vacant lots for trailer space. The army erected barracks for 1,700 men at the depot but married men and their families still swarmed in. One farmer threw away his plow and turned his 160 acres into sought-after trailer space.
"With families still living in tents or under any shelter available, the state and federal governments stepped in. They provided migratory worker and trailer camps and augmented school facilities – just about the time the end of the job was sighted."

Thus, in 1940, life picked up in Hermiston. On Nov.14, 1940, after Washington D.C. announced Captain Robert C. Williams had been ordered to Hermiston, the Herald reported:

"What is to follow is known only in Washington, D.C.... Many rumors have floated about the streets of Hermiston... but the Herald will not seek to publish any of them."

By Dec.19, 1940, the government announced a huge contract to build the largest munitions depot in the world, right here in Hermiston, for a cost of $9,000,000. To put that in perspective, "Regular Size" cornflakes cost only five cents at the time. A new Sealy mattress sold for $29.50. Patent leather shoes were $2.25 a pair. You could buy a new John Deere tractor, mower, and back-rake for $730.

So $9 million was a lot of money those days. Some estimates were the cost would rise to $12 million. Then to $15 million. A 1990 Army document put the total construction cost at $35 million.
For the wages, the crews worked their tails off, setting world records for that type of work. On Sept.24, 1941, they poured 24 concrete igloos in 24 hours, using 9,000 yards of concrete.

To do this job, workers flocked to Hermiston, overwhelming the merchants and outstripping the area's ability to provide basic services and housing.

In Sept.1941, "Portland Oregon Journal" featured Hermiston as the "hot spot" of the Northwest. Newspapers welcomed workers and hailed their record-setting volumes of concrete poured during igloo construction.
"Workers from all sectors of the country came to drill the depot's deep wells, build its magazines, warehouses and shops, and carry out its 241-mile network of road and railroad tracks," an Army document says.
But by Nov.27, 1941, workers were leaving the town in droves as construction tapered off abruptly.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan attacked the Pearl Harbor, crippling the United States Navy Seventh Fleet and drawing the country in to the war. By December the Hermiston had posted guards at the city reservoir as part of the Civilian Defense Program and the depot went into service storing and shipping conventional weapons for use in World War II. According to Army documents, workers went on "round-the-clock -shifts to ship, receive, store and care for the items needed for war."

Because of the draft, whereby able-bodied men were called into military service, workers were scarce. Those who remained worked long, arduous hours. Women were plunged into the work force in unprecedented numbers. They drove heavy-duty trucks, handled ammunition, and built crates alongside men.


The Tragedy Igloos were designed so that, in the event of an explosion, the blast would go up, rather than out, to minimize the destruction. On March 21, 1944, bombs being stored in an ammunition storage igloo exploded, killing six civilian workers.

News reports said the blast was felt as far away as Lewiston, Idaho, and that the concussion traveled in waves, so that windows in a limited area were broken, but then the damage might "skip" several miles, to repeat itself. In some cases doors were blown off the hinges, and in others the casing went too. Seismographs in Spokane reported a "very slight" earth disturbance at the time of the explosion. However, the Army design proved effective in that the blast went upward as intended, and the sandy soil reportedly killed concussion to nearby bunkers. The Bunker housed 2,000 pound, "blockbuster" bombs used in aerial bombing, but contained "only a partial capacity of bombs."

No explanation was given of what actually caused the explosion, although some workers of the time speculated a bomb might have been defective, or may have been dropped "just right." News reports commended civilian workers for being "good soldiers" and for returning to work following the explosion.

Nevertheless, by May, the depot was running advertisements saying, "Help win the war!" Labor was on the decrease, the ad said, and the depot wanted people to sign up for a six-hour shift from 6 p.m. to 12 midnight. "This appeal is made to all able-bodied men in Hermiston," the ad said. The pay incentive was 81 cents per hour.

During the summer of 1945, huge stock of munitions were returned from overseas, and a "sizable amount" was routed to Hermiston for renovation, maintenance, and storage. Unserviceable ammunition was demilitarized and salvage was made of reusable components.

The Army built several new ammunition renovation shops and modified others, but the work "was a monumental task that took years to complete, Army documents say.

Thank you to Center for Columbia River History for preserving this on their web site: http://www.ccrh.org/
It was not until the 1960s that the depot would begin its role in storing toxic chemical munitions.