Oak Ridge Today

Oak Ridge celebrates 70th birthday at Jackson Square this afternoon

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Oak Ridge will celebrate its 70th birthday today with historic displays and talks in Jackson Square, special games and activities, a preservation award, and a special free showing of “Fat Man and Little Boy.”

Gen. Leslie R. Groves selected the area that is now Oak Ridge—it was then 90 square miles of East Tennessee farmland—as the first site for Manhattan Project facilities on Sept. 19, 1942. The Manhattan Project was a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first atomic weapons during World War II.

The 70th birthday festivities kick off at 3 p.m. today in Jackson Square.

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Contractor completes K-25 east wing demolition, moves to north end

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K-25 East Wing Demolition

Workers wrap up the demolition of the K-25 east wing, pictured at left, in this Sept. 5 photo. The north end is in the foreground. (Photo submitted by UCOR)

One month after a historic preservation agreement was signed, a federal cleanup contractor announced Friday that it has completed demolition work on the east wing of the K-25 Building and is preparing to demolish the north end.

Historic preservationists had lobbied for years to save the north end, but its deteriorated condition made that option unfeasible, a press release said.

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Oak Ridge celebrates 70th birthday on Sept. 19

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Oak Ridge will celebrate its 70th birthday on Sept. 19 with historic displays and talks in Jackson Square, special games and activities, a preservation award, and a special free showing of “Fat Man and Little Boy.”

A press release said Gen. Leslie R. Groves selected the area that is now Oak Ridge—it was then 90 square miles of East Tennessee farmland—as the first site for Manhattan Project facilities on Sept. 19, 1942. The Manhattan Project was a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first atomic weapons during World War II.

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Oak Ridge plans for Manhattan Project’s 70th anniversary

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Organizers in Los Alamos, N.M., and Hanford, Wash., are having special events today to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Manhattan Project, the top-secret national effort to create the world’s first atomic bombs during World War II.

Although nothing is planned in Oak Ridge, local volunteers are considering whether to have a celebration on Sept. 19, the 70th anniversary of the decision to select Oak Ridge for the first Manhattan Project site, newspaper columnist and Y-12 National Security Complex Historian D. Ray Smith said in an e-mail.

The volunteers plan to begin discussing the possible celebration during a 4 p.m. Tuesday meeting in the Oak Ridge Convention and Visitors Bureau conference room.

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House committee to vote on Manhattan Project historical park Wednesday

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Manhattan Project National Historical Park House Hearing

Pictured above at a June 28 U.S. House hearing on the Manhattan Project National Historical Park Act are, from front left, Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation president; Heather McClenahan, executive director of the Los Alamos Historical Society; and D. Ray Smith, Y-12 National Security Complex historian. Gary Petersen, Tri-City Development Council vice president, is pictured in the background. (Photo courtesy of Atomic Heritage Foundation)

A U.S. House committee will vote Wednesday on a bill to create a Manhattan Project historical park that would include Oak Ridge, Rep. Doc Hastings announced Friday.

The legislation will be considered by the House Committee on Natural Resources.

Hastings is chair of that committee and sponsor of the bill, the Manhattan Project National Historical Park Act. He represents the Hanford site in Washington, which would also be part of the national park.

“I expect the Committee will vote to favorably advance the bill to the full House for consideration,” Hastings said in a news release. “A great many volunteers have been working for years to bring this idea into reality, and I’m pleased that progress is being made in the law-making process to preserve this amazing and important piece of our nation’s history.”

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Historical Oak Ridge photos posted on Atlantic website

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A photo gallery posted on The Atlantic magazine website is generating interest in historical Oak Ridge photos.

The pictures, most of them by photographer Ed Westcott, capture life in Oak Ridge and its federal plants between 1942 and 1966.

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