A Look at Trinidad's Mysterious Rock Ovens

First published on July 28, 2019, in the Columbia Basin Herald - Moses Lake, WA

An intact rock oven built by Italian railroad workers stands north of Trinidad.

Trinidad - Buried in the sagebrush in a small ravine a few miles from Trinidad stands a stone beehive-looking structure. In the same ravine, a similar structure can be seen. This one looks like it has had it’s roof collapse. These unusual structures are believed to be rock ovens built by Italian railroad workers in 1892.

As rail spread across the country, the Great Northern Railroad built a line from Chicago to Seattle. Work on tracks in Grant County happened in the early 1890s, with the line reaching Wenatchee in 1892.

Much debate has taken place over who built these rock ovens, that can be found along various railroad lines around the US. In some places where rock ovens are found, urban legend attributes them to the Chinese. Other possible people to have built them include Greeks, Scandinavians and

“Although many ethnic groups made and used rock ovens, those that are found on early 20th century railroad-related sites are more likely to have been built by Italians simply because that ethnic group constituted the majority of railroad laborers in the United States at that time,” wrote Priscilla Wegars in the article “Who’s Been Workin’ on the Railroad?: An Examination of the Construction, Distribution and Ethnic Origins of Domed Rock Ovens on Railroad-Related Sites,” published in Historical Archaeology, Vol. 25, No. 1, 1991. “Italians were first employed on the railroads in the 1870s; within 10 years, and certainly by the 1890s, they monopolized the laboring jobs on most lines in the United States and Canada, particularly in the northeast. This may have been because they were willing to accept lower wages; the Italians in particular were known to work for up to one-third less than the Irish.”

The Italians were known to have a love for bread. In the various places where they camped, the Italians built rock ovens so they could satisfy their need for bread.

Peter Janni was 17-years-old Italian boy who worked at Trinidad when the railroad was being built. His story was related in the Seattle Times on October 22, 1967, in the article “Rock Ovens That Fed Railway Builders,” written by Leonard Ekman.

“In 1891, when track workers labored on the rock-bound grade near Trinidad, no power equipment was used for drilling or for moving rock,” Eknam wrote. “Hand-held drills, struck by burly, maul-swinging laborers, made the holes for blasting powder. After each round of blasting, the loosened rock was hauled from the cut in wheelbarrows, where it was dumped over the side of the coulee near the project. Pay for this arduous work was $2.00 a day, for a ten hour shift.”

Janni had come to the US with his father, who was working on the copper hill in Butte, Mont. Janni joined the railroad, eventually working at Trinidad. Shortly after arriving at Trinidad, his father returned to Italy, leaving Janni alone in the US.

“Peter’s job consisted of carrying steel drills from the drill crews to the shop where they were sharpened, and back to the drillers when the steel had been reconditioned and tempered,” Ekman wrote. “At times, when no steel needed sharpening, he took a turn on a wheelbarrow, hauling rock from the diggings to the dump on the rim of the coulee. Although he was not required to haul rock, he was afraid he might be fired if caught not working. Since his father returned to Italy shortly after Peter's arrival at the Trinidad camp, the thought of being unemployed and alone in a strange land was indeed frightening.”

Janni was one of approximately 250 Italians that were part of a larger work crew building the tracks at Trinidad. Conditions in the camps were rough. The railroad provided food and shelter to their men, for a charge. One of the practices of the day was to charge company workers such that after expenses, they barely had any money left over. To reduce costs, some Italians would live in makeshift structures, whether it be tents or made out of whatever was available.

“Janni recalls that the men slept on sagebrush boughs covered with blankets, and that at times when the men awoke in the morning they would find that several rattlesnakes had moved in,” Ekman wrote.

Water was scarce, as it had to be hauled three miles up the hill from the river. Baths and clean clothes could only be acquired if the trek across the rattlesnake-infested desert was made.

Since the Italians wanted to save money by not eating the railroad’s food, they had to cook their own meals.

“Janni explained that the Italian men divided into groups of up to ten each,” wrote Ekman. “Each group constructed an oven for bread. Besides the economy factor, their love for bread doubtless was one of the reasons for living in an independent camp. Each group hired a cook whose salary of $2.00 a day was apportioned among its members.”

This now collapsed rock oven once had a beehive shape.

Baking bread in the rock ovens required more time to heat the oven than to bake the bread.
“First, a fire is built inside,” wrote Wegars. “After it burns down, the coals are raked out. The oven floor is swept clean and then sprinkled with cornmeal or flour. Next the loaves are placed inside after closing the flue hole in the rear of the oven’s roof; the door is sealed with a piece of metal or a damp cloth. The entire process took about two and one-half to three hours to prepare the coals, but only about 15 minutes of baking time at 450°F.”

At Trinidad, the bread would have been cooked with wood from sagebrush and placed in the oven with paddles made of driftwood.

Ekman wrote, “In a nostalgic mood Janni said: ‘The bread was so hard that if a man had been struck in the head by one of the loaves it would have killed him.’ Then he added, ‘But it was real bread.’"

Today, only one of the ovens at Trinidad is fully in tacked. A second one is still partially intact. Other ovens may be present, but they are difficult to find under the sagebrush and weeds growing in the area.

Another rock oven used to stand a few miles away, just north of Trinidad. However this one was torn down by the railroad several years ago. Other rock ovens have been reported on the west side of the river, across from Beverly; around Coulee City and in the Stratford area. It is unknown whether the Coulee City and Stratford oven accounts are true or accurate. Pictures have been taken of the Beverly oven, but it’s current condition is unknown. The Tumwater Canyon and Cheney have also had rock ovens found.

In addition to the rock ovens at Trinidad, there are quite a few round, rock walls that were probably also built by the Italians, possibly for the purpose of shelter.

“The independent Italians lived in makeshift tents, shacks made of whatever material could be found and crudely made stone huts,” wrote Ekman.

These structures don’t appear to have roofs that have caved in. Some are wide enough that three men could have cram into them to sleep. Others would only have been wide enough for one man. The true purpose of these walls is unknown.

A stone wall stands in the area of the rock ovens.
This structure could have possibly been a shelter for railroad workers.

Some distance from the campsite is the remains of a stone building. Local legend claims that it may have been a maintenance shed with track possibly running to it. This structure appears to have been a three-sided building. The ruins would suggest that the structure had a wood or canvas for the roof. While most of the walls are crumbled down, a window can still be seen in the rocks.

The remains of what may have been a mechanic’s shed
near the rock ovens at Trinidad.

Hanford B Reactor Tours Open to the Public

First published on April 10, 2019, in the Sun Tribune - Moses Lake, WA

Editor’s note: This article on a small piece of the history of Hanford was not written to be a history piece per say. However, I found my time at the Hanford B Reactor to be quite fascinating.

HANFORD - The Manhattan Project National Historical Park has opened tours of Hanford’s B Reactor for the 2019 season. Tours run April through November.

Hanford was one of several sites around the country that was chosen as a possible site for a nuclear reactor. Coronel Franklin T. Matthias first visited the Hanford area in Dec. 1942. Shortly after his visit, it was decided that Hanford was the best site, thanks to its remote location and closeness to a steady stream of water.

Construction began on the B Reactor in the fall of 1943 and was completed 11 months later on Sept. 13, 1944. It became the first full-scale nuclear reactor in the world. During its construction and the construction of the other buildings and reactors on the Hanford site, over 45,000 workers were on the payroll.

In the 1930s, scientists began experimenting with atoms. It was found that uranium had the possibility of breaking up into smaller pieces and could create a tremendous amount of energy.

“When they found that it could be split, they wondered, ‘Could this be made into a weapon?’” said Ben Johnson, docent for the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.

Refugees from Europe had written to President Roosevelt saying that they believed that Hitler was attempting to make a weapon. This fear put the Hanford project into high gear.

Lieutenant General Leslie Groves, who was in charge of the project, approached the Dupont Company. Dupont didn’t want to build the reactor, stating that they didn’t know how to build such a building.

“Groves said that no one else did either,” said Johnson.

Dupont agreed to take on the project, with several conditions, such as they didn’t want to run the facility after the war was over and someone else would have to be responsible for tearing it down.
Once Hanford was selected as the ideal site for the new top secret facility, farmers and residents of the area were given eviction notices and told not to tell their family fighting in the trenches. The government was afraid that such news would cause a drop in moral among the troops.

With Dupont agreeing to take on the project, work began.

“This build was probably the largest contract ever let to a commercial firm,” said Johnson. “It was built in 11 months.”

Johnson attributed the speed of the build to the country being scared and seeing the project as a need for survival.

“We can never repeat what happened here at Hanford,” Johnson said. “There was a lot they didn’t know. The success out here is due to the Dupont Company.”

While Dupont didn’t know anything about how to build a reactor, they did get insight from approximately 2000 physicists. Based on the information the physicists provided, Dupont constructed the facility. They knew that water was extremely important to keeping the reactor cool and that it needed to keep flowing for it to work properly. They also build complex and multi-layered protections to keep the radiation levels as low as possible. Dupont built many layers of redundancy throughout the entire reactor, always allowing a backup plan if something were to go wrong.

Today, the B Reactor is the only reactor that has not been totally striped and cocooned. It has been turned into a museum and is defined as a national park. It is part of the Manhattan Project National Park.

Tours of the Hanford B Reactor allow visitors to explore most of the rooms on the main floor. Rooms are checked daily to ensure that radiation levels are at normal and safe levels. Those rooms that may

Rooms available to visitors include the front face of the reactor, the control room, the water valve pit and the intake and exhaust fan rooms. Live presentations, along with audio and video presentations, are available throughout the tour. Visitors are allowed to explore the various rooms at their leisure.

The tours are available now through mid-November. Visitors under the age of 18 are allowed, but must have a signed release form and must be with a parent or adult guardian for the entire tour.

In addition to the B Reactor tour, a Pre-Manhattan Project tour is available until the end of October. This tour looks at the life of residents of the Hanford and White Bluffs and those who were evicted in 1943. Stops on the tour include the Bruggemann Warehouse, the Allard Pump House, the First Bank

To learn more about the Hanford B Reactor tour, as well as the Pre-Manhattan Project tour, call (509) 376-1647 or visit manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov and tours.hanford.gov/historictours. Tours begin and end at 2000 Logston Blvd, in Richland. Pre-registration is required. A four-hour commitment is required for both tours.

How We Got the Grant County PUD

First published on April 24, 2019, in the Basin Business Journal - Moses Lake, WA

The historical information for this article was taken from a series of 1965 newspaper articles.

How did Grant County get its own Public Utility District? Those who have grown up in the county have taken the Grant County PUD existence for granted. They offer cheap, reliable power to those they serve. If one were to take a look at Grant County 100 years ago, electricity was sparse to non-existent.

The Grant County PUD was formed by a vote of the people on Nov. 8, 1938. That vote was a result of years of persistent work by those who opposed private entities, mainly Washington Water Power, owning electrical companies.

The first city in Grant County to get private power was Ephrata in 1916. It was a started “in an old stone garage” with a generator producing power, wrote Dave Johnson in a Grant County Journal article printed on Mar. 4, 1965 entitled “City Plants Furnished First Electricity.” The generator was turned on “each evening from dusk until midnight.” It was also turned on Monday mornings for the convenience of housewives who owned electric washing machines.

Quincy received power next, in 1917. Wilson Creek and Soap Lake also had privately owned power plants. These early power companies were small and typically didn’t have many customers.
Washington Water Power Company announced in January of 1922 “that it would spend $300,000 to build a 70-mile transmission line from Odessa to the areas of Marlin, Wilson Creek, Stratford, Adrian, Grant Orchards, Soap Lake, Ephrata and Moses Lake (Neppel) to provide electricity for pumping water from wells and lakes to 25,000 thirsty acres,” wrote Johnson in a Mar. 11, 1965 article entitled “Washington Water Power Enters County.”

Lines were strung immediately and were ready for use in May 1, 1922. The coming of electricity was a cause for excitement, with a celebration being held in Ephrata on May 12 and 13. Power allowed farmers to pump irrigation water to the desert.

“As early as 1921, the Washington State Grange was promoting a state law which would permit public acquisition of private power systems,” Johnson wrote in “PUD#1 Never Got Off Ground” that was published on Apr. 29, 1965.

Several attempts were made to get the law passed, but it failed four different times. Washington Water Power did not want this bill to succeed. They and other private “power companies fought the utility district bill by reducing rates, extending rural lines and announcing plans to build new power plants,” wrote Johnson. They claimed that the bill was “the most dangerous tax increase measure ever submitted to voters of the state.”

During this same time, the Washington Water Power Company was fighting the creation of the Grand Coulee Dam. While they agreed that the Basin needed irrigation, they were opposed to any idea that included a dam that generated electricity. The battle over the dam lasted many years with the proponents of the dam winning the battle.

Finally in 1930, the bill to allow public utility districts was put on the ballot as a voter initiative and passed. 

“On Oct. 5, 1931, a petition signed by 55 property owners in the Neppel precinct was presented to the Board of County Commissioners, asking that a PUD district be created in that area,” Johnson wrote.

It wasn’t until the election of the following year that the PUD was set up. The purpose of this PUD was to allow farmers who lived out of the Washington Water Power area to band together to pay for the construction of power lines to their homes and farms.

Once the formation of this PUD was approved, it was named Public Utility District No. 1 of Grant County. It was believe that there would be other utility districts forming, due to the lack of coverage that this district had. However, this PUD never became anything “more than a ‘paper organization,’” Johnson wrote. It never built any power lines or levied any taxes.

There was growing discontent with the way Washington Water Power dealt with those wishing to connect to their lines.

There “were a group of farmers who had built an extension line on a co-operative venture to hook up the Washington Water Power transmission lines near Wilson Creek,” wrote Johnson in the article entitled “Grange Led Fight To Create County PUD in 1938,” published on May 6, 1965. “Like others who had become rural customers of Washington Water Power, they were required to deed the line to the company as well as the transformers.”

During the general election on Nov. 8, 1938, a new public utility district was approved by voters. At the same time it was approved, three commissioners were elected.

“Grant County Public Utility District No. 2, the first county-wide PUD in Grant County, became the 18th such district to be formed in the state of Washington,” wrote Johnson.

Unlike the first utility district, this new district began levying taxes the following year. The first two years were spent organizing and exploring how they were going to acquire power lines.

On Dec. 30, 1941, the Grant County PUD was approved for a $600,000 loan through the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). The REA had been created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on May 11, 1935. All the money that have previously been levied had gone to setting up the PUD on paper. The loan, of which only $50,000 was borrowed, was used to purchase the PUD’s first two electric companies. One was in Soap Lake; the other was in Coulee City. These two systems totaled 24 miles of electric lines. Once these lines were making money, the PUD began looking at what other lines they could purchase. They set their sights on Washington Water Power lines in Grant County, with the exception of the Warden and Hartline areas.

On Nov. 13, 1944, a trial began between the PUD and Washington Water Power for condemnation of the private companies power lines. The trial lasted 17 days with jurors awarding the lines to the PUD for $546,984.80. Washington Water Power believed that their lines were worth twice that amount and sought a new trial. In June of 1945, the PUD gave Washington Water Power a certified check for $46,000 over the previously stated amount.

“The difference represented an increase in property valuation granted by the PUD in return for an agreement by Washington Water Power Co. to drop its appeal, and for accumulated interest on the amount awarded by the court back in December,” Johnson wrote, in the article “Condemnation Suit Launched PUD Into ‘Big Time,’” printed on May 27, 1965.


In the years to come, Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams would be built. Smaller projects, in the form of the Quincy Chute hydroelectric project and the Potholes East Canal Headworks hydroelectric project, would be constructed. Fiber lines would begin to be laid to provide the county with high speed internet. And the Grant County PUD would continue to provide cheap electricity to the residents of Grant County.