What Happened When Small-Town America Became Data-Center, U.S.A.

UMATILLA, ORE.—Yesenia Leon-Tejeda, like many people on the frontier of America’s tech boom, is basking in newfound prosperity. 

Her hometown in northeast Oregon was not long ago known for a former chemical-weapons depot nearby, a state prison on the city’s outskirts and the strip clubs once dotting its main drag. But a growing fleet of Amazon data centers has turned the region around Umatilla into an unlikely nerve center for one of the most expensive infrastructure build-outs in U.S. history.