Frederic Clagett was born in 1912 and graduated from Stanford University with an A.B. in chemistry in 1934. He arrived in Richland, Washington, in 1948 to work for the General Electric Company, the operator of the federal nuclear facility at Hanford. Clagett served as a member of the Richland City Council from 1951 to 1972 and was elected mayor by the council for four terms, 1954-1955, 1957-1958, and 1967-1970. From 1972 until his retirement in 1982, he worked for the Washington State Office of Community Development's Planning and Community Affairs Agency. He also served on numerous commissions and boards, including the Washington Thermal Power Plant Site Evaluation Council/Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, 1973-1977, and the Washington State Constitutional Revision Commission, 1968-1969. Clagett died in 2001.
The papers, measuring 13.42 cubic feet and spanning the years 1942-1982, document Clagett's work as a Richland city official and his service on several government and civic councils and commissions. Each of his positions is represented by a separate subgroup of papers.
The Richland City Council subgroup comprises the bulk of the accession. This subgroup documents the city's development from a federally-owned community to a self-governing municipality. Richland Village was established almost overnight as a "government city" for housing employees of the Hanford Engineering Works, a major production center of the U.S.'s atomic weapons program. Construction began on the massive (and top-secret) Hanford complex in March 1943, and within fifteen months the first nuclear reactors were operational. Plutonium produced at Hanford was used in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.
Richland, which was officially known as Hanford Engineering Works Village, gained some measure of self-governance in 1948 and was incorporated as a Washington State city in 1958. Because of Richland's beginnings as a federally-owned community, issues of federal property disposal and housing were particularly important. These and other community and economic development issues are documented in the Correspondence, Minutes, and Reports series. The Hearings series focuses on land disposal legislation considered by Congress in the mid-1950s, and the Subject Series files outline the great range of issues with which the city council dealt. The "Richland Diary" is a short history of Richland's early years co-authored by Clagett. The Richland materials also include eleven volumes of oversized scrapbooks that chronicle events in the city from1948 to 1960.
Among the other subgroups in the collection, the largest documents Clagett's service on the Washington State Community Development Office's Planning and Community Affairs Agency. Energy was a pressing topic during Clagett's tenure with the agency, and the proposed Northern Tier Pipeline is among the issues documented in the Subject Series. Energy issues are also outlined in the Thermal Power Plant Site Evaluation Council subgroup.
The collection is open to all users.
The creator's literary rights were transferred to the University of Washington Libraries.
The Fred Clagett Papers were donated to the Libraries in 1983 and 2001 by Fred Clagett, and in 2002 by his daughter, Brenda Clagett.
Several accessions were merged and processed in 2001-2002.