Best Web Design in Richland, WA (2026)

Web Design for Richland, Washington

Richland is a Manhattan Project boomtown on the Columbia River that grew from about 300 people to 25,000 almost overnight when the Army built the Hanford plutonium works next door. It still wears its atomic heritage openly, from the high school's mushroom-cloud mascot to a brewpub named Atomic Ale, even as its modern economy runs on national-lab science, wine, and Hanford cleanup. Today it anchors the Tri-Cities in the sunny, semi-arid Columbia Basin.

AppWT works with Richland, WA businesses from Livonia, Michigan, mostly online and travelling as needed.

About Richland

Also known as. Atomic City. A-City. Atomic City of the West. The Atom-Bustin' Village of the West.

History. Townsite established in 1905 and named for Nelson Rich, a Washington state legislator and land developer; incorporated as a fourth-class city on April 28, 1910. A quiet farm town of only a few hundred residents until 1943, when the U.S. Army seized the area for the Manhattan Project's Hanford Engineer Works and evicted the existing residents. Population exploded from roughly 300 to about 25,000 by the end of World War II in August 1945 as workers arrived to build and run the site. Hanford's B Reactor, near Richland, was the world's first full-scale plutonium production reactor; Hanford plutonium fueled the 'Fat Man' bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. Residents voted for self-governance and the city re-incorporated as a chartered first-class city on December 10, 1958, ending its run as a federal 'company town.' The last production reactor shut down in 1987, shifting the region toward environmental cleanup and research.

Local economy. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), operated by Battelle and headquartered in Richland since 1965, is the largest employer with roughly 4,500 workers. Kadlec Regional Medical Center (about 3,500 employees) is a major healthcare employer. Hanford cleanup contractors including Bechtel National and Washington River Protection Solutions employ thousands processing and containing nuclear waste. Energy Northwest operates the Columbia Generating Station, the Northwest's only commercial nuclear power plant, in the area. Lamb Weston runs potato processing operations, reflecting the Columbia Basin's agricultural output. Richland sits within the Columbia Valley wine appellation and is a center of Washington's growing viticulture and wine industry.

Culture and community. Richland High School teams are the 'Bombers,' with a mushroom-cloud logo and the chant 'Proud of the Cloud'; the nickname originally honored a B-17 bomber that Hanford workers helped finance, but the imagery evolved into the atomic mushroom cloud. The Original Spudnut Shop has served potato-flour doughnuts ('spudnuts') since 1948 and is a beloved local institution. Atomic Ale Brewpub & Eatery on Lee Boulevard leans into the nuclear theme with atomic-branded beers and decor. Cool Desert Nights is an annual classic-car show and cruise celebrating the region's car culture. Riverfront festivals and the summer hydroplane-racing tradition of the Tri-Cities draw crowds along the Columbia.

What makes Richland distinct. WWII 'alphabet houses' still stand across the city: prefab government homes assigned by letter based on family size and need. Streets carry engineer, general, and nuclear-science names, including Goethals Drive, Einstein Avenue, Curie Street, and Proton Lane. A 2019 Japanese exchange student sparked renewed debate over the high school's mushroom-cloud mascot, noting her grandparents survived because clouds diverted the Hanford-plutonium bomb from Kokura to Nagasaki. During the 2021 Western North America heat wave, Richland hit 118?F (48?C), tying the Washington state record. A massive automated cold-storage warehouse at 2800 Polar Way has been billed as among the largest cold-storage facilities on Earth. Richland's sister city is Hsinchu, Taiwan.

Richland Landmarks and Local Life

• Hanford B Reactor - the first full-scale plutonium reactor, now part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park and open for public tours
• Howard Amon Park - a riverside park along the Columbia in the heart of the city
• Badger Mountain Centennial Preserve - whose summit trail overlooks the Tri-Cities and the Yakima and Columbia rivers
• Hanford Reach National Monument - protecting the last free-flowing, non-tidal stretch of the Columbia River, created by presidential proclamation in 2000
• Sacagawea Heritage Trail - a paved multi-use loop that runs along the Columbia through the Tri-Cities
• The LIGO Hanford Observatory - a gravitational-wave detector, sits on the nearby Hanford Site