the atomic city tennessee

Dr. William H. Dobelle, biomedical researcher who developed technology that restored limited sight to blind patients. [14] Bull Bluff is a cliff immediately southeast of Haw Ridge, opposite Melton Hill Park. [58] Another team, the Oak Ridge Bombers, played briefly in 1948 before relocating.[59]. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 4.6% of the population. If a catastrophic explosion occurred, the ridges would act as buffers between the plants. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 90.0 square miles (233.0 km2), of which 85.3 square miles (220.8 km2) is land and 4.7 square miles (12.2 km2), or 5.25%, is water.[7]. Though homeowners have made changes—siding, eaves, paint—to distinguish their houses from the others, some Oak Ridge neighborhoods still retain an eerie, modular quality. Oak Ridge National Laboratory was established in 1948 from the facility codenamed X-10, where plutonium was extracted from irradiated slugs of uranium, and encompasses the original graphite reactor. Building the secret industrial facilities and housing for workers cost around $1.32 billion (about $18.5 billion in today's dollars). Unlike the earlier land acquisitions by the Tennessee Valley Authority for Norris Dam—which were still fresh on the minds of many Anderson Countians—the Corps' "declaration of taking" was much more swift and final. The Roane Anderson Company administered community functions, including arranging housing and operating buses, under a government contract. the expected highest and lowest temperature readings at any point during the year or given month) calculated based on data at said location from 1981 to 2010. Wilcox’s experience was atypical of the 75,000 government workers and construction personnel who populated the gated district from 1942 to 1945. The houses were rented, not sold, and modifications were forbidden. Kenneth Nichols, the MED District Engineer, was told by the main construction contractor for the K-25 plant that the Negro construction labor force had a large turnover rate, so Nichols gave permission to set up a separate black women's camp. When he described his visions, people thought he was insane; for this reason, he was institutionalized for a time. Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that segregated public schools were unconstitutional, the Oak Ridge officials changed their policy and desegregated the schools. Its relatively low population made acquisition affordable, yet the area was accessible by highway and rail, and utilities such as water and electricity were readily available due to the recent completion of Norris Dam. Oak Ridge uses the council-manager government system, which was established in 1959 when the city was incorporated. [29] SOM Partner John O. Merrill moved to Tennessee to take charge of designing the secret buildings at Oak Ridge. The Japanese had their own effort to develop an atomic bomb, based at RIKEN, a scientific institute near Tokyo, according to the, City Behind a Fence: Oak Ridge Tennessee 1942-1946, Uranium: War, Energy and the Rock that Shaped the World, ATOMIC SUPER-BOMB, MADE AT OAK RIDGE, STRIKES JAPAN, Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945, U.S. Air Force Sets Speed Record With Magnetically Levitating Rocket Sled. The city is home to two of the most advanced neutron science research centers in the world, and the government is still the area’s major employer. [41] The normal monthly mean temperature ranges from 37.7 °F (3.2 °C) in January to 78.5 °F (25.8 °C) in July, while, on average, there are 5.4 days where the temperature stays at or below freezing and 41 days with a high at or above 90 °F (32 °C) per year. It is home to the Spallation Neutron Source, a 1.4 billion dollar project completed in 2006, and "Titan", one of the world's most powerful scientific supercomputers, which has peak performance of more than one quadrillion operations per second. “I was told I would be working on uranium, and was sternly cautioned, ‘That’s the last time you will hear that word, and you must never speak it,’” Wilcox, now 87, recalled. "Roads" connected two streets, while "Lanes" and "Places" were dead ends. Oak Ridge is served by a daily newspaper, The Oak Ridger, and was for many years the home of AM radio station WATO. Two years after World War II ended, Oak Ridge was shifted to civilian control, under the authority of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). "Oak Ridge school district ranked number one in state", "After nine-year run, Oak Ridge Observer closes", http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0142/1103353.pdf, American Indian Science and Engineering Society, "Nikki Caldwell accepts UCLA head coaching job", Sheldon Datz, 74, Pioneer in Molecular Chemistry, Dies, "Ellen Reid, who grew up in Oak Ridge, wins Pulitzer Prize in music", Historic photos of Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oak_Ridge,_Tennessee&oldid=984322785, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox settlement with possible nickname list, Articles needing additional references from May 2008, All articles needing additional references, Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia, Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz area identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 19 October 2020, at 14:18. After flowing for approximately 17 miles (27 km), the river bends sharply to the northwest at Copper Ridge, and continues in this direction for nearly 7 miles (11 km). [33] During the war, plans were made for a colored neighborhood of houses equal in quality to those provided for whites, but it was not implemented due to limited resources. The Oak Ridge area was largely uninhabited when Euro-American explorers and settlers arrived in the late 18th century, although the Cherokee claimed the land as part of their hunting grounds. On 60,000 acres of farmland framed by the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, it was one of the United States’ three secret cities—remote sites chosen by Manhattan Project director Gen. Leslie Groves, evacuated of their civilian inhabitants, and developed for the specific purpose of producing an atomic bomb. Boeing operated a manufacturing plant in the city beginning in the early 1980s, but closed in 2007. The men now had an opportunity to "fracas" on Saturday night, and labor turnover had reduced. In 1943, after graduating from Washington and Lee University, Bill Wilcox landed a coveted job as a government chemist and was sent to a city that didn’t exist. When Leslie Groves visited the plant with K. T. Keller of Chrysler, Keller saw twelve Negro women sweeping the thirty-foot wide alley between the production units, and said "Nichols, don't you know there is a machine made to sweep a concrete floor like this?" (2005). By March 1943, the COE had removed the area's earlier communities and established fences and checkpoints. [7] It is part of the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory site, as it appears today. A library with 9,400 books, a symphony orchestra, sporting facilities, church services for 17 denominations, and a Fuller Brush Company salesman served the new city and its 75,000 residents. The city operates a preschool, four elementary schools enrolling kindergarten through grade 4, two middle schools enrolling grades 5 through 8, and one high school enrolling grades 9 through 12. Oak Ridge provided space at a recently vacated elementary school building (the original Linden Elementary School) for the education of high school students from Clinton for two years while Clinton High School was being rebuilt. A short distance from the American Museum of Science and Energy is A. K. Bissell Park, home of the Secret City Commemorative Walk, a recent and charming addition to the city from its Rotary Club. The median income for a household in the city was $48,716, and the median income for a family was $69,333. Oak Ridge is a suburban city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about 25 miles (40 km) west of downtown Knoxville. In 1953, the Oak Ridge Town Council encouraged desegregation of Oak Ridge High School; this resulted in an unsuccessful attempt by some residents to recall Waldo Cohn, one of the council. As of the 2010 United States Census,[5] there were 29,330 people, 12,772 households, and 7,921 families residing in the city. The town was surrounded by guard towers and a fence with seven gates. Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning website. The demolition will cost more than $1 billion and will take several more years, at which time the area will be used for industries in the Department of Energy’s Eastern Tennessee Technology Park. You consent to our cookies if you continue to use our website. The Y-12 National Security Complex is a component of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. About 10.7% of families and 16.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 28.1% of those under age 18 and 6.7% of those age 65 or over. With no air conditioning or heating, windows at the top provided the only airflow. Watts Bar Lake, an impoundment of the Tennessee River which covers the lower 23 miles (37 km) of the Clinch, borders Oak Ridge to the south and southwest. Aside from the New Hope Center for visitors with a small exhibit hall, access is restricted. [17][18] Cooper came to see the project (except for the production facilities under construction) on November 3, 1943; and he appreciated the bourbon-laced punch served (although Anderson County was "dry"). The Big Bopper (Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr.), singer, songwriter, musician; an early star of rock 'n' roll ("Chantilly Lace"), he died in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the pilot, Roger Peterson. The city’s third remaining Manhattan Project plant, Y-12, is a bustling DOE facility that still manufactures, manages, and stores nuclear materials. The racial makeup of the city was 86.8% White (81.8% non-Hispanic), 8.1% African American, 0.4% Native American or Alaska Native, 2.5% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 2.0% from other races, and 3.0% from two or more races. The infrastructure that was new in the 1940s is aging. Oak Ridge's population was 29,330 at the 2010 census. Robertsville Junior High School, serving the west half of Oak Ridge, was desegregated at the same time as the high school. The median age was 43.5 years. Independent schools in the city include the Montessori School of Oak Ridge (preschool and kindergarten founded in 1977), St. Mary's School (Roman Catholic, pre-kindergarten through grade 8), and several preschools.

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