Days spent in Eastern Washington's secret atomic community often were unremarkable. But some of the women who spent time there in the early 1940s recounted these vivid memories:

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To stave off boredom and enliven morale at the dreary desert site, numerous dance bands and concerts were brought to Hanford.

Among the most famous was Kay Kyser and his band.

Days before his appearance at Hanford, Kyser was performing in another town and mentioned his planned visit to Hanford, recalled Marjorie Peterson, who came to work at Hanford one summer when she was 19.

Federal agents didn't think too highly of the remark, considering the site's intense secrecy.

And Kyser didn't think too highly of the feds' relentless grilling of him about the off-handed comment.

The musician was so fed up by the time he finished performing at Hanford, he decided not to hassle anymore with his polished, 9-foot grand piano, and left it behind.

The grand piano is still used today at Richland High School.

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Friday night was the liquor run.

The only liquor store was a 45-minute drive from Hanford to Pasco, and to make it before closing time took some planning, recalled Mitzi Mars Butcher.

Two friends would wait outside her office at quitting time with the car engine running.

Butcher would race from the office, cram into the two-seater Cord and they would drive madly to town.

There, they stood in a line that stretched for two blocks and was three to four people deep.

"If you made it in the door by 8 o'clock, you were fortunate," she said. "If not, you stood in disbelief for 15 minutes before moving on."

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Safety was a key concern at Hanford in the early 1940s.

And what better way to promote safety than to have a beauty contest?

About 250 women chosen from various Hanford departments competed five nights on stage in July 1944.

Donations were collected to buy or make evening gowns.

But the swimsuit competition was eliminated altogether because not everyone could find a suit, recalled contestant Geneva Owen Hammer.

Another contestant, Hope Sloan Amacker, was recruited to represent the Women's Army Corps.

She wanted to wear a ball gown like the rest of the contestants, but her supervisor said he couldn't grant permission for her to compete out of uniform.

Besides, he told her, "You do want to win, don't you?"

So, wearing her uniform, she won the contest.

"Patriotism was a big thing then and those construction workers were out there cheering for me every night," Amacker said.

"And I was proud of my uniform. I felt good in it."

She earned a $100 savings bond, which she later used for her wedding.

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To ensure secrecy, Hanford's transportation department managers were told to give random names to the railroad stops on the nuclear reservation rather than using numbers or letters.

So managers named the stops after secretaries in their offices.

Some of the stops were: Susie, Helen, Ginger, Bettie, Pearl, Ruth and Edna.

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Marge Nordman DeGooyer learned about the bombing of Japan when she boarded a swing shift bus at Hanford.

For five months, she had been a laboratory analyst working for an unknown reason with small amounts of what she believed was some type of radioactive substance.

When she climbed on the bus, chemist Herb Gwen stood up in the aisle and shouted, "Plutonium! Plutonium! Now, I can say it out loud!"