Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of downtown Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 31,402 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. Oak Ridge's nicknames include the Atomic City,Olwell, Russell, At Work in the Atomic City: A Labor and Social History of Oak Ridge, Tennessee (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2004). the Secret City,Warren Resen, "The Secret City: Oak Ridge, Tennessee" ," The Observer News, August 3, 2010. Retrieved November 9, 2011. and the City Behind a Fence.
In 1942, the U.S. government forcibly purchased nearly of farmland in the Clinch River valley for the development of a planned city supporting 75,000 residents. It was constructed with assistance from architectural and engineering firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, from 1942 to 1943. Oak Ridge was established in 1942 as a production site for the Manhattan Project—the massive American, British, and Canadian operation that developed the atomic bomb. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Y-12 National Security Complex, and several private nuclear and scientific facilities are still in Oak Ridge, and scientific and technological development plays a crucial role in its economy and culture. In 2016, the element tennessine was named for Tennessee, in recognition of the role Oak Ridge and other institutions in the state played in its discovery.
History
The earliest substantial occupation of the Oak Ridge area occurred during the Woodland period ( – 1000), although artifacts dating to the Paleo-Indian period have been found throughout the Clinch River valley.Beverly Burbage, "Paleo-Indian Points and Uniface Material from the Clinch River Valley." Tennessee Archaeologist 28, no. 1 (Spring of 1962), 47–50. Two Woodland mound sites—the Crawford Farm Mounds and the Freels Farm Mounds—were uncovered in the 1930s as part of the Norris Basin salvage excavations. Both sites were just southeast of the former Scarboro community.William Webb, An Archaeological Survey of the Norris Basin in Eastern Tennessee (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1938), 180–189. The Bull Bluff site, which was occupied during the Woodland and Mississippian (c. 1000–1600) periods, was uncovered in the 1960s in anticipation of the construction of Melton Hill Dam.Glyn DuVall, "A Phase I Archaeological Survey of Proposed Potable Water Storage and Force Main Facilities, Y-12 National Security Complex Site, Anderson County, Tennessee" (August 2005), p. 4. Retrieved April 3, 2008. Bull Bluff is a cliff immediately southeast of Haw Ridge, opposite Melton Hill Park.
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. The European-American settlers who founded these communities arrived in the late 1790s after the American Revolutionary War and after the Cherokee signed the Treaty of Holston, ceding what is now Anderson County to the United States.
During the early 19th century, several rural farming communities developed in the Oak Ridge area, namely Edgemoor and Elza in the northeast, East Fork and Wheat in the southwest, Robertsville in the west, and Bethel and Scarboro in the southeast.
A popular legend holds that John Hendrix (1865–1915), a largely unknown local man, predicted the creation of the city of Oak Ridge around 40 years before construction on the project began. Hendrix lacked any formal education and was a simple logger for much of his life. Following the death of his youngest daughter, Ethel, to diphtheria, and the subsequent departure of his wife and three remaining children, Hendrix began hearing voices in his head. These voices urged him to stay in the woods and pray for guidance for 40 days and 40 nights, which Hendrix proceeded to do. As the story is told, following these 40 days spent in rugged isolation, Hendrix began seeing visions of the future, and he sought to spread his prophetic message to any who would listen. According to published accounts, one vision that he described repeatedly was a description of the city and production facilities built 28 years after his death, during World War II.
The version recalled by neighbors and relatives reported:
Hendrix, in light of his tales of prophetic visions, was considered insane by most and at one point was institutionalized. His grave lies in an area of Oak Ridge now known as the Hendrix Creek Subdivision. There are ongoing concerns over the preservation of his gravestone, as the man who owns the lot adjacent to the grave wishes to build a home there, while members of the Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association are fighting to have a monument placed on the site of his grave.
Manhattan Project
In 1942, the federal government chose the area as a site for developing materials for the Manhattan Project. Major General Leslie Groves, military head of the Manhattan Project, liked the area for several reasons. 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 with the recent completion of Norris Dam. The project location was established within a valley. This feature was linear and partitioned by several ridges, providing natural protection against the spread of disasters at the four major industrial plants—so the plants would not blow up "like firecrackers on a string".Johnson and Jackson, City Behind a Fence, 6–8.
In October 1942, the United States Army Corps of Engineers began acquiring approximately in the Oak Ridge area for the Manhattan Project. Due to the project's urgency and secrecy, the Corps' "declaration of taking" was swift and final. Many residents came home to find eviction notices on their doors. Others found out when their children came home from school with a message from the principal: Senator McKellar wants me to tell you to go home and tell your parents you are going to have to find another place to live." There was no further explanation. All the students were told was, "The government is going to take your property for the war effort." Several families who had moved to the Oak Ridge area after displacement by the Tennessee Valley Authority were displaced again by the Manhattan Project campaign. The average price per acre paid was $46.86.
By March 1943 the Corps had removed the area's earlier communities and established fences and checkpoints. Anderson County lost one-seventh of its land and $391,000 in annual property tax revenue. The manner in which the government acquired Oak Ridge created a tense, uneasy relationship between the Oak Ridge complex and the surrounding towns.Johnson and Jackson, City Behind a Fence, pp. 41–47. Although the area's original residents were allowed to be buried in existing cemeteries, every coffin was reportedly opened for inspection. The Corps' Manhattan Engineer District (MED) managed the acquisition and clearing for what was to be first known as the Clinton Engineer Works. The Y-12, K-25, and S-50 plants were each built in Oak Ridge to separate the fissile isotope uranium-235 from natural uranium, which consists almost entirely of the isotope uranium-238. The X-10 site, now the site of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was established as a pilot plant for production of plutonium using the Graphite Reactor, used to develop full-scale plutonium production at the Hanford Site.
During construction of the electromagnets required for the uranium separation process at the Y-12 site, a shortage of copper forced the MED to borrow 14,700 tons of silver bullion from the United States Treasury as a copper substitute in wire for the electromagnet coils.
When Tennessee Governor Prentice Cooper was officially handed the July 1943 presidential proclamation by a junior officer (a lieutenant)—making Oak Ridge a military district not subject to state control—he tore it up and refused to see the Manhattan Project engineer, Lieutenant Colonel James C. Marshall. The new district engineer, Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Nichols, had to placate him.* 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").
House and dormitory accommodations to support construction workers contracted to build the Clinton Engineer Works (CEW) in Oak Ridge were basic, consisting of trailers, barracks, and many "hutments"—pre-fabricated five-person huts heated by a central coal-powered furnace. Construction camps were segregated between black workers and white workers. Two of the largest were Gamble Valley, with up to 4,000 trailer spaces, and Happy Valley, whose population grew from about 5,000 to about 15,000. In addition to trailers and hutments, the camp towns included various recreational buildings (e.g., theaters and bowling alleys), cafeterias, and commissaries. Medical care was provided by Army doctors and hospitals, with civilians paying $2.50 per month ($5 for families) to the medical insurance fund.
Planned community The location and low population helped keep the town a secret, though the settlement grew from 3,000 to 3,750 in 1942 to about 75,000 by 1945. Because of the large number of workers recruited to the area for the Manhattan Project, the Army planned a town for project workers at the eastern end of the valley. The time required for the project's completion caused the Army to opt for a relatively permanent establishment rather than an enormous camp. The name "Oak Ridge" was chosen for the settlement in 1943 from suggestions submitted by project employees. The name evoked the settlement's location along Black Oak Ridge, and officials thought the rural-sounding name "held outside curiosity to a minimum".For Your Information: A Guide to Oak Ridge (United States Engineering Department – Community Relations Section, September 1946), p. 3. The name was formally adopted in 1949.
The architectural and engineering firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was contracted to provide the layout for the town and house designs.Johnson and Jackson, City Behind a Fence, 14. John O. Merrill moved to Tennessee to take charge of designing Oak Ridge's secret buildings.Westcott, Ed. (2005). Westcott, Ed. (2005). Oak Ridge, Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. ; OCLC 62511041, page 61 He directed the creation of a town,Lehman College Art Gallery, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), Merrill bio notes which soon had of roads, of railroad track, ten schools, seven theaters, 17 restaurants and cafeterias, and 13 supermarkets. 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. No airport was built, for security reasons. Prefabricated modular homes, apartments, and dormitories, many made from cemesto (bonded cement and asbestos) panels, were quickly erected. Streets were laid out in the manner of a "planned community".