Gale Metcalf of Kennewick is a lifelong Tri-Citian, retired Tri-City Herald employee and volunteer for the East Benton County Historical Museum. He writes the monthly history column.
Materials needed to maintain the Allied war effort and America’s role in it required a rationing system to manage the fair distribution of essential goods and to prevent hoarding.
The late Blanche Pratt was the first transit bus driver in the Tri-Cities, slipping behind the wheel of the Tri-Cities’ first passenger bus in May 1942 during World War II.
The thunder of booming drums will reverberate through the air during the Oct. 4 annual Cavalcade of Drums in Kennewick. But there will be none quite like the Big Drum which has marched to its own drumbeat dating back six decades and more at Kennewick High School.
As the Tri-Cities marks the diamond jubilee of professional baseball’s arrival, the memories of that inaugural season – and many that followed – continue to resonate with longtime fans across the region.
The so-called Ditch of Death galvanized an entire community to bring a major safety feature to the canal within a week of a little boy’s drowning. On its 5-mile flow through what then comprised the small town of Kennewick, it had claimed the lives of 10 children.