Posted on 05/27/2012 5:56:29 AM PDT by don-o
Twenty-eight years after the prophet's death, a secret complex code-named Y-12 was built in Bear Creek, and a secret city sprang up — seemingly almost overnight — in the next valley over in the shadow of Black Oak Ridge.
Not shown on any maps at the time, Oak Ridge — first called Clinton Engineering Works after the nearby town of Clinton — was born in 1942 during World War II.
It was the key facility in the huge effort called the Manhattan Project to build the world's first atomic bomb.
(Excerpt) Read more at knoxnews.com ...
bttt
I only recently learned that my mother worked as a stenographer there.
A claim that might be reasonably disputed by Los Alamos.
Weren’t the two labs pursuing different tracks to a goal that no one was even certain could be reached?
The rush to beat the Germans was the big impetus to getting 'er done.
There were more than 2 tracks. Each refinement method was attempted and when it was determined which was the most efficient, the ore was directed for the shortest path.
Unless I’m confused (quite possible) LA was design and OR was construction.
Went to the Oak Ridge facility about 15 years ago. Is a good museum in a beautiful part of the country.
They have a mock-up of that first reactor there, the crudity is chilling!
Just like Site Trinity. The “clean room” was in an old farmhouse with hand-lettering in dripping green paint over the door.
Today, we’d never get the job done.
My wife’s cousin worked there and still to this day at age 92 won’t talk about what he did.
Los Alamos was the transit point to get the secrets learned at Oak Ridge (and Hanford) into Stalin's hands.
*ping of interest*
One thing interesting to anyone going there. The guard shacks which are fortified still stand on Oak Ridge Turnpike which in the day was likely the only road in or out. The entire city plus the whole reservation had a fence around it and was highly patrolled. Most of the roads including the one to the National Laboratory are closed to the public now following 9/11. Bethel Valley Road used to be a short cut locals used to by-pass Oak Ridge for places further west.
I only briefly passed through the area (after going by Clinton, to see the courthouse) back in the ‘90s. Reading in the article that the gubmint evicted the existing residents, it reminds me of how the heavy hand of the feds forced a lot of folks off their land. Oak Ridge, TVA, even locally near me, the Corps of Engineers creating Percy Priest Lake (named after a powerful Democrat Congressman from Nashville). That latter project dammed the Stones River and flooded a historic area that included the former Rutherford County seat of Jefferson which once vied to be the state capital (where both Andrew Jackson & future rival Thomas Hart Benton practiced law — the latter would leave the state and become one of Missouri’s most powerful political figures for decades), which I regarded as criminal.
So many of the folks evicted were poor farmers or people who’d occupied the land for years, a century or more. I think I mentioned that incident when Lamar! was Governor when they were celebrating the creation of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park and he invited an old man up on stage, who promptly yelled at Alexander and everyone else, “You stole my land !”
The project for all practical purposes was dead until Howard Baker and John Duncan Sr pushed a bill through late at night to once again fund it.
The disgusting part came when the land was purchased from the original owners. Unlike other lakes where the owners only had to sell to full pool elevation plus a few feet on Tellico Lake it the parcel of land had an inch of it on the lake the entire parcel was taken by Eminent Domain for pennies on the dollar to what it would sell at lake front prices. The land went to developers. Tellico Lake flooded some of the most fertile and productive farm land in East Tennessee.
The upper Tennessee rivers were built as part of the Manhattan project and the war effort. Douglas, Cherokee, and FT Loudon were such. As well Alcoa had dams on the Little Tennessee up into North Carolina. Alcoa was also a huge part of the war effort.
The TVA though was created on a New Deal Propaganda and lie by FDR. He wrongfully portrayed this region as poor, uneducated people living on farms with with bad soil erosion. The damage the rivers did running at full generation stream to once fertile river bottoms far exceeded any floods that would have happened in 1000 years. The people living in this region had a strong self reliance and he flooded thriving towns and communities.
TVA also started a lot of the so called environmentalism. My grandparents lived close to Norris Dam the first built by TVA. Maybe 7 miles or so. The power was sent to Knoxville, Clinton, & Norris but my grandparents home was without electricity till the late 1940's early 50's because TVA said it would spoil the scenic beauty of the federal highway.
But there's more. Did you know TVA actually built a model city? Read about the history of Norris LOL you'll be shocked at the agenda of TVA even back then. It was built in the early 1930's at first to house workers for TVA at the dam. TVA chairman Arthur Morgan envisioned Norris as a model of cooperative, egalitarian living. The city design was developed by TVA staff
BTW I can remember the old court house in Clinton. Wood frame best I remember. http://travel.nostalgiaville.com/Tennessee/Anderson/clinton/clinton.htm
BTW I can remember the old court house in Clinton. Wood frame best I remember. http://travel.nostalgiaville.com/Tennessee/Anderson/clinton/clinton.htm
Yes, those government land grabs for projects pushed through without the support of residents are a real black mark on our history. Conservative Democrat Sen. Kenneth McKellar wanted to privatize the TVA back in the ‘40s/early ‘50s, but the liberals howled over such a sensible proposal and ran the execrable Albert Gore, Sr. against him partly over that issue, and sadly, McKellar lost (and so did Tennessee). I didn’t know about Baker & Duncan, Sr.’s role in the Tellico Lake issue. Goes to show that Republicans aren’t always on the right side.
I think I recall reading about Norris being a model city. As for the town & dam’s namesake, I always found it curious why a Senator from western Nebraska like George Norris (a Liberal Republican) was so overwhelmingly interested in the affairs of Tennessee. It’s not like he was initially from here (he was born in and grew up in Ohio). He shared a similar fate as McKellar, though, when the folks in his home state had grown tired of him after 40 years in Congress (he bolted the GOP in 1936 and ran as an Independent) and sent him packing in early 1943 (he got only 28% against Conservative GOPer Ken Wherry).
As for the old Anderson County Courthouse, you probably remember the one with the clock tower that was sadly demolished in the 1960s (I tell you, some of the ugliest government buildings imaginable were those built in the post-WW2 period up until the 1980s - replacing some of the most beautiful, irreplaceable older buildings). The “new” Courthouse is not very attractive, although there’s some even worse than that in TN. I think the Bradley County Courthouse in Cleveland may probably be the most ugly in the state, although I’d have to look over my book of courthouses to be sure. The current trend, however, seems to be making more attractive public buildings again, often with a nod towards the “old school” designs. Up in Cadiz, Kentucky (not far from Land Between the Lakes), they replaced their last courthouse and made the new one look like the one they demolished to build the previous one.
Sevier County court house is also an older one still standing. The Historical marker outside with Isaac Thomas the founder of Sevierville was my wife's Grandfather of about 5-6 generations ago. Her uncle about 4 generations ago was General John P McCown CSA from Sevierville who was at the Battle of Murfreesboro.
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