photo #4943138

Hanford Construction Camp Mess Hall #1 before and during a meal, November 1943. They were building the B Reactor, the world's first full scale nuclear reactor which supplied the plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The Manhattan Project was a top secret mission and none of the workers knew what they were building.Just how busy were the 8 mess halls at Hanford? For starters, each mess hall could hold 2700 people for each setting, with usually 3 settings for each meal period. Here are some other facts:~ 1,000,000 meal ticket cards on file. ~ Four million lunch boxes sold from July, 1943, to October, 1944. ~272,000 pounds of processed meat, ready for oven or grill used in one week. ~ 3,000 pounds of sausage used for one breakfast. ~ 2,500 pounds of pot roast for one meal. ~ 18,000 pork chops for one meal for one mess hall. ~ 11,000 pounds of swiss steak for one meal for all mess halls. ~ 250,000 pounds of meat used for all mess halls for one week. ~ 15 tons of potatoes for one mess hall each day. ~ 5,000 heads of lettuce for each meal for one mess hall. ~ 1,200 pounds of onions for one meal for one mess hall. ~ 900 full pies for one meal for one mess hall. ~ 1,000 pounds of coffee for one day for one mess hall. ~ 30,000 doughnuts for one day. ~ 2,200 loaves of bread used each day for sandwiches, not counting bread on tables. ~ Sandwich machine makes 360 sandwiches an hour. Three machines in operation.~ 700 cases of Coca Cola a day 600 gallons of ice cream a day. ~ 12,000 gallons of beer consumed each week (13 carloads). ~ It would take 250 good cows to supply the milk for one breakfast.#hanford #hanfordwa #hanfordconstructioncamp #manhattanproject #1940s #history #historyfacts #food #vintage #beforeandafter #tricitieswa #tricitieswashington #historylesson #hungry