The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was directed by Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the bombs. The Army program was designated the Manhattan District, as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the name gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. The project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project employed nearly 130,000 people at its peak and cost nearly US$2 billion, over 80 percent of which was for building and operating the plants that produced the fissile material. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites across the US, the UK, and Canada.
Leslie Richard Groves Jr. was a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project, a top secret research project that developed the atomic bomb during World War II.
Oak Ridge is a 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. 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, the Secret City, and the City Behind a Fence.
William Prentice Cooper Jr. was an American politician and diplomat who served as the 39th governor of Tennessee from 1939 to 1945. He led the state's mobilization efforts for World War II, when over 300,000 Tennesseans joined the armed forces, and numerous defense-related facilities were established across the state. He later served as United States Ambassador to Peru (1946–1948) and chaired Tennessee's 1953 constitutional convention.
K-25 was the codename given by the Manhattan Project to the program to produce enriched uranium for atomic bombs using the gaseous diffusion method. Originally the codename for the product, over time it came to refer to the project, the production facility located at the Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the main gaseous diffusion building, and ultimately the site. When it was built in 1944, the four-story K-25 gaseous diffusion plant was the world's largest building, comprising over 5,264,000 square feet (489,000 m2) of floor space and a volume of 97,500,000 cubic feet (2,760,000 m3).
The American Museum of Science and Energy (AMSE) is a science museum in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, designed to teach children and adults about energy, especially nuclear power, and to document the role Oak Ridge played in the Manhattan Project. The museum opened as the American Museum of Atomic Energy in 1949 in an old World War II cafeteria on Jefferson Circle. It moved to its second facility in 1975 and was renamed AMSE in 1978. As of June 2019, the museum is located in the shopping mall across the street from the old location.
Miller's Department Store was a chain of department stores based in East Tennessee.
The United Church, Chapel on the Hill in Oak Ridge, Tennessee was the city's main church during World War II. Dedicated on September 30, 1943, and completed late in October 1943, it was originally a multi-denominational chapel shared by Catholic, Protestant and Jewish congregations.
The Children's Museum of Oak Ridge is a non-profit children's museum in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States, that provides museum exhibits and educational programs.
Robertsville was a farming community in Anderson County, Tennessee, that was disbanded in 1942 when the area was acquired for the Manhattan Project. Its site is now part of the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Kenneth David Nichols CBE was an officer in the United States Army, and a civil engineer who worked on the secret Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb during World War II. He served as Deputy District Engineer to James C. Marshall, and from 13 August 1943 as the District Engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District. Nichols led both the uranium production facility at the Clinton Engineer Works at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the plutonium production facility at Hanford Engineer Works in Washington state.
The three Oak Ridge gatehouses, also known as "checking stations", "guard houses", or "guard shacks", are security checkpoints in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, built c. 1948-1949 to control access to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) production and research facilities in Oak Ridge. These are individually listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places as Bear Creek Road Checking Station, Bethel Valley Road Checking Station and Oak Ridge Turnpike Checking Station.
The George Jones Memorial Baptist Church, also known as the "Wheat Church," is a historic church building at the former site of the community of Wheat in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. It is the only structure remaining from Wheat, a rural Roane County community that was dissolved in 1942 when the United States government assumed ownership of the land for the Manhattan Project.
The Alexander Inn, originally known as The Guest House, is a historic building in Oak Ridge, Tennessee that was built during the Manhattan Project to house official visitors and that later was used as a hotel. It is included on the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing property in a historic district.
The Dr. Fred Stone Sr. Hospital is a six-story brick structure in Oliver Springs, Tennessee. Noted for its castle-like appearance and eccentric, unplanned design, the building was home to a one-doctor hospital operated by retired U.S. Army physician Fred Stone Sr. (1887–1976) in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Stone delivered over 5,000 babies while working at the hospital, and expanded the building room-by-room, floor-by-floor in his spare time. In 2006, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its association with the region's medical services history, namely the transition from rural country doctors to modern hospitals.
New Bethel Baptist Church is a historic church on Bethel Valley Road in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
James Edward Westcott was an American photographer who was noted for his work with the United States government in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, during the Manhattan Project and the Cold War.
The Clinton Engineer Works (CEW) was the production installation of the Manhattan Project that during World War II produced the enriched uranium used in the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, as well as the first examples of reactor-produced plutonium. It consisted of production facilities arranged at three major sites, various utilities including a power plant, and the town of Oak Ridge. It was in East Tennessee, about 18 miles (29 km) west of Knoxville, and was named after the town of Clinton, eight miles (13 km) to the north. The production facilities were mainly in Roane County, and the northern part of the site was in Anderson County. The Manhattan District Engineer, Kenneth Nichols, moved the Manhattan District headquarters from Manhattan to Oak Ridge in August 1943. During the war, CEW's advanced research was managed for the government by the University of Chicago.
Elza was a community in Anderson County, Tennessee, that existed before 1942, when the area was acquired for the Manhattan Project. Its site is now part of the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The J. B. Jones House in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States, is a farmhouse that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as one of the very small number of pre-Manhattan Project residences remaining in the city.
