Editing Tri-Cities, Washington (section)

==Area history==
{{Main|Timeline of the Tri-Cities, Washington}}

===Founding===
[[Image:RichlandWaBadgerTrail-d.jpg|thumb|left|220px|Central Richland as seen from [[Badger Mountain (Richland, Washington)|Badger Mountain]]]]
Pasco was the first of the Tri-Cities to be incorporated, in 1891. Kennewick was incorporated in 1904, and Richland followed in 1910. [[West Richland]]—a suburb of Richland, as well as the fourth largest city in the metropolitan area—was founded by dissatisfied residents of Richland, who wished to be home owners rather than renters of government-owned houses, after the arrival of [[Hanford Site|Hanford]]. Despite attempts by Richland to annex the community, they remained separate and eventually became incorporated in 1955.

===Early history===
Pasco was the largest city in the Tri-Cities, mostly due to [[Pasco Intermodal Train Station|its railroad station]]. It also had the most land for easy irrigation and [[farming]] and was still the largest up until the founding of Hanford near Richland.

Farming was the basis of virtually every sector of the economy in the early years. Indeed, the area remained mostly rural well into the 1940s. It did not have a daily newspaper or radio station until the mid-1940s. Even today, agriculture is a big part of the Tri-Cities, Pasco in particular.

===1940s–1970s===
After the founding of the [[Hanford Site]] in 1943 as part of the [[Manhattan Project]], Richland became the largest city of the three overnight. Richland's [[Richland High School (Washington)|Columbia High School]] adopted "Bombers" as its mascot (complete with mushroom cloud logo). In 1970, [[Kamiakin High School]] (in the neighboring city of Kennewick) was founded in response to the continued influx of people. The economy continued to grow, but not without some turbulence. Every time the Hanford facilities experienced reduced funding, thousands of people would suddenly become jobless.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}} During this time, other employers slowly made their way into the area, but they too would often be forced to cut jobs in the bad times. Since the 1970s, Kennewick has had the greatest population of the three cities. The [[Columbia Center Mall]] opened in 1969 on land newly incorporated into Kennewick, drawing growth to western Kennewick and south Richland.<ref name="FindlayHevly2011">{{cite book |first1=John M. |last1=Findlay |first2=Bruce |last2=Hevly |title=Atomic Frontier Days: Hanford and the American West |date=2011 |publisher=University of Washington Press |location=Seattle |page=131 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YSqUHZQ4tXsC&pg=PA131 |series=Emil and Kathleen Sick Series in Western History and Biography |isbn=978-0-295-80298-5 |lccn=2011004808 |oclc=820530076 |chapter=The Atomic City of the West: Richland and the Tri-Cities |quote=Kennewick also grew by becoming the leading retailer of the Tri-Cities with the completion of the Columbia Center shopping mall in 1969.}}</ref>

===1980s–1990s===
[[Image:RichlandWaEMSL.jpg|thumb|right|284px|The Environmental Molecular Science Laboratory at [[Pacific Northwest National Laboratory]], a major national [[laboratory]] in Richland]]
Completion of the [[Interstate 182 Bridge]] in 1984 made Pasco much more accessible, fueling the growth of that city.<ref>{{cite news |first=Joel |last=Connelly |title=We have to live with our transit decisions |url=http://www.seattlepi.com/connelly/244857_joel17.html |work=Seattle Post-Intelligencer |publisher=Hearst Newspapers |date=October 17, 2005 |access-date=March 31, 2008}}</ref> With the end of the Cold War, many in the area feared a shutdown of Hanford, followed by the Tri-Cities quickly becoming a [[ghost town]]. These fears were allayed after the [[United States Department of Energy]] switched the facility's purpose from the creation of nuclear weapons to the effective sealing and disposal of [[radioactive waste]]. During the 1990s, several major corporations entered the Tri-Cities, which helped to begin diversifying the [[economy]] apart from the Hanford sector. In 1995, a sixth public high school, [[Southridge High School (Kennewick)|Southridge High]], was founded in south Kennewick.

===2000s–present===
The 2000s saw continued rapid growth as the Hanford site hired hundreds of workers to help with the cleanup effort. Additionally, the Tri-Cities saw a large influx of retirees from various areas of the Northwest. During this time, and the corresponding nationwide housing boom, all three cities flourished and grew significantly. Pasco became the fastest growing city in Washington (in terms of both percent increase and number of new residents). In 2005, the [[Census Bureau]] reported that Pasco's population had surpassed Richland's for the first time since pre-Hanford days. Fueled by the boom, [[Chiawana High School]] was founded, and by 2019 had become the largest high school in the entire state.

Despite the economic recession of the late 2000s, the Tri-Cities area continued to maintain steady growth and a stable economic climate due in part to the [[American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009]] which directed funding and jobs to the Hanford site and its various cleanup efforts.