The Umatilla Depot: War, Work, and Community

Living Spaces became a luxury. Householders rented spare rooms, then rented front lawns and vacant lots for trailer space. The army erected barracks for 1,700 men at the depot but married men and their families still swarmed in. One farmer threw away his plow and turned his 160 acres into sought-after trailer space. Notes in the Army Archives

Temporary housing constructed on Hermiston's newly built Bomb Street.
Courtesy of the Umatilla Ordnance Depot Outreach Office

   The influence of 5,000 to 7,000 workers on the sleepy desert hamlet suddenly overwhelmed approximately 800 citizens. People lived in tents and chickenhouses in the town of Hermiston, and a housing facility and town - Ordnance - was constructed to house workers south of the military facility. It had a post office, a school, two stores, and a theater. When a local resident later bought the town and converted into a pig farm, Ordnance became known as "Pigville."

   After the U.S. entered World War II on December 8, 1941, the Depot went into full service. The army shipped conventional weapons by water to Umatilla, then by rail to the army depot. In February 1942, the United States began military conscription, and in August the Hermiston Herald advertised openings at the depot. The jobs guaranteed employment for the duration of the war and for six months after, and $5.92 per day.

We had some interesting jobs. . . We rebuilt 37-millimeter ammunition from the Nationalist Chinese. We renovated a lot of three-inch aircraft ammunition for our own troops. We even pulled the projectiles apart, resized the casings, put in new primers, new propellants, new fuses on the rounds, and. . . made them look about like a brand new round, only they were different from the original. Benny McCoy, depot worker since 1941, in Hermiston Herald, December 1, 1998

   Workers from all over the U.S. came to the depot, increasing the region's diversity. Nearby members of the Umatilla Indian Reservation found work driving trucks, loading and unloading munitions and on assembly lines. During the war, women represented 27% of the workers. They drove trucks, handled ammunition, and built crates for storage.  In 1944 and 1945, nearly 1,000 German POWs took part in the Umatilla Basin harvest, working in canneries in Hermiston and Pendleton. Migrant laborers recruited from Mexico and later from Haiti also worked in the fields and canneries.

forward

Photo Archive * Documents Archive
Oral History Archive    
Bibliography & Web Resources