There's something irresistible about old photographs.

No matter where they're displayed, it's tough to resist a look at the people, the buildings, the cars or even just the scenery.

So when Herald reporter Annette Cary wrote recently about selections from Hanford's archive of 1.5 million historical photos being posted online, a lot of readers were hooked.

Especially when they learned the Herald website photo galleries -- www.tricityherald. com/galleries -- was obtaining and posting 50 historical photos from the years before the Hanford Nuclear Reservation was created in 1942 as a site to produce plutonium for the world's first nuclear weapons.

To find the Hanford photos, you might have to scroll past galleries of Mid-Columbia residents showing off their tattoos or a series of images from the last Dust Devils game, but feel free to make a side trip.

When you get to the Hanford gallery, you'll find a rare glimpse at life in the Mid-Columbia before the arrival of thousands of construction workers brought drastic and permanent change.

By early 1943, workers were arriving by the thousands to build the infrastructure that would help win World War II and the Cold War.

Each Hanford photo on the Herald site includes a link to the Department of Energy's archive of historical photos. For now, DOE is displaying about 200 photos of towns, schools and farms leveled to make way for the Hanford.

It's a tiny part of DOE's collection, which includes about the 1.5 million Department of Energy negatives that chronicle the history of the Hanford nuclear reservation.

But it's a fascinating glimpse. Anyone interested in Eastern Washington's history will want to take look.

DOE especially wants folks with ties to the region before 1942 to help identify some of the people and events pictured in the collection.

If you plan to visit, make sure you have some free time. It's easy to get lost in these remarkable images from our past.