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The Manhattan Project Heritage Preservation Association, Inc. "Preserving, Exhibiting, Interpreting and Teaching the History of the Manhattan Project" |
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Manhattan Project History
Clinton Engineer Works (Oak Ridge)
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By the time President Roosevelt authorized the Manhattan Project on December 28, 1942, work on the east Tennessee site where the first production facilities were to be built was already underway. On Saturday, September 19, Groves had approved the acquisition of 59,000 acres of land along the Clinch River, 20 miles west of Knoxville, Tennessee. Also approved was the removal of relatively few families on the marginal farmland and extensive site preparation to provide the transportation, communications, and utility needs of the town and production plants that would occupy the previously undeveloped area. At first, this location was known as "Site X" and later changed to the Clinton Engineer Works, named after the nearest town. After the war, the name was again changed officially to Oak Ridge. Original plans called for the military reservation to house approximately 13,000 people in prefabricated housing, trailers, and wood dormitories. By the time the Manhattan Engineer District headquarters were moved from Washington DC to Tennessee in the summer of 1943 (Groves kept the Manhattan project's office in Washington and placed Col. Kenneth D. Nichols in command at Tennessee), estimates for the town of Oak Ridge had been revised upward to 45,000 people. (Note: The name Oak Ridge did not come into usage until after World War II but will be used here to avoid confusion). By the end of the war, Oak Ridge was the fifth largest city in Tennessee and was consuming 1/7 of all the electrical power being produced in the United States. While the Army and its contractors tried desperately to keep up with the rapid influx of workers and their families, services always lagged behind demand. The three production facility sites were located in valleys away from the town. This provided security and containment in case of accidental explosions. The Y-12 area, home of the electromagnetic plant, was closest to Oak Ridge, being one ridge away to the south. Farther to the south and west lay both the X-10 area, which contained the experimental plutonium pile and separation facilities, and K-25, site of the gaseous diffusion plant and later the S-50 thermal diffusion plant. Y-12 and X-10 were begun slightly earlier in 1943 than was K-25, but all three were well along by the end of the year.
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