You can join a National Park Service ranger for a bike ride down beautiful Melton Lake Greenway on Saturday, September 24, a press release said. (Submitted photo)
You can join a National Park Service ranger for a bike ride down beautiful Melton Lake Greenway on a Saturday in September, a press release said.
The Manhattan Project National Historical Park will present the free program at 10 a.m. Saturday, September 24. The program will begin at Elza Gate Park, the former entry point to the once-secret city now known as Oak Ridge, and continue down Melton Lake Greenway. Rangers will stop several times along the bike ride to point out the rich history that is found within the Oak Ridge area, the press release said.
Elza Gate Park is located at 101 Oak Ridge Turnpike in east Oak Ridge, just east of Melton Lake Drive. Maps are available at the National Park desk in the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, or you can call (865) 576-6767.
“Join Manhattan Project National Historical Park and help us celebrate our centennial by finding your park in Oak Ridge, Tennessee,” the press release said. “This year is the National Park Service’s 100th birthday; join us as we create activities (that) provide you with opportunities to create priceless memories when discovering national parks.”
The Manhattan Project was a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first atomic weapons during World War II. Oak Ridge is part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which was formally established in a signing ceremony on November 10, 2015. Also part of the park: Hanford, Washington, and Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Among other things, Oak Ridge built uranium enrichment facilities for the Manhattan Project at the former K-25 site and Y-12 and the pilot facility for plutonium production at the Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which was then known as X-10.
To learn more, visitors are encouraged to visit this website:Â www.nps.gov/mapr/oakridge.htm. For more information or directions, please contact the Manhattan Project National Historical Park at (865) 576-6767.
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