The Secret City

Toured Oak Ridge, Tennessee yesterday. The city was secretly built by the govment in the early 40's for the Manhattan Project. The site was chosen because of the TVA projects which could provide the massive amounts of electricity required. At one point, a seventh of the power used in the country was consumed in production of U-235 and plutonium. They needed 100 lbs of each. An entire city was built with schools, stores, and housing for the 50,000+ people who worked there. If you've driven around the area you could easily imagine how difficult it would have been for anybody to find this place. At any rate, we took a cd self guided tour of the area and facilities. Unlike similar tours we've taken at Gettysburg and other civil war battle fields, this one was difficult to follow. We must have turned around 10 times. It was very interesting. A good deal of original housing still exists. Homes were built as fast as possible using a concrete-asbestos mix material for walls and flat roofs. They were called "flat-tops." That may ring a bell for a couple of you. The govment didn't actually acknowledge the existence of the town until about 1950. It is still one of two spots where real top secret labs exist. The Y-12 lab is the name, and in following our self guided tour, I took a wrong turn and ended up at the entry gate. The armed guards took my license and after about 20 minutes closed traffic in and out so we could u-turn and exit. Not a smile on a face anywhere. Coincidently, last night on the History Channel, the show was on Oak Ridge and attemps to reconstruct what the facility must have looked like at it's peak. It housed the largest building in the world at one point, and still has contaminated areas. Some of you may not know that my Dad worked on AEC projects from about 1951 through 1954. He said that everybody had to wear badges that would change color if radiation was present. He also said that most people ignored them because if you left everytime the badges changed color, nothing would get done.
After that, we rode down to Tellico Lake, another TVA project where a number of golf and boating real estate projects are selling. We didn't go in because they insist that you register with the sales office and be accompanied by them. They keep tire kickers like me at bay.
Today is Danas's birthday, so we shall head into Knoxville and hit a museum or two, the Ladies Basketball Hall of Fame, and hopefully dinner with music. Later.