Photo © TriCities CVB
Washington’s newest museum, The Hanford Reach Interpretive Center (or The REACH), is scheduled to make its debut in the summer season 2014. Through interpretive displays, this carefully conceived center exposes visitors to the violent forces that sculpted the Columbia Basin landscape, the human history of the area, modern agriculture and viticulture so vital to the state’s economy and the history of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and the Manhattan Project of WWII—the crucial project at the Hanford Site.
The REACH isn’t only an interpretive center, but an organizing force for a broad spectrum of field tours for visitors to the Tri-Cities, ranging from a tour focusing on the Ice Age Floods with a geologist to food and wine tours with a culinary guide. Outdoors at The REACH is also home to an amphitheater overlooking the river, promising a host of entertainment events.
A long time in the planning stage, The REACH should prove to be a model for interpretive centers everywhere. The sweeping architecture stylistically evokes the Columbia Basin’s geologic history and the serpentine curvature of the life-giving Columbia River as it flows through its basin. Visitors walk through time and subject as they take in the expertly crafted displays, emerging at the end with a new-found appreciation for the Tri-Cities and their surroundings.
To learn more about visiting The REACH, go online at visitthereach.org.
To plan a trip to the Tri-Cities, go to visittri-cities.com.
