• About
    • About Us
    • What We Cover
  • Advertise
    • Advertise
    • Our Advertisers
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Send News
  • Subscribe

Oak Ridge Today

  • Home
  • Sign in
  • News
    • Business
    • Community
    • Education
    • Government
    • Health
    • Police and Fire
    • U.S. Department of Energy
    • Weather
  • Sports
    • High School
    • Middle School
    • Recreation
    • Rowing
    • Youth
  • Entertainment
    • Arts
    • Dancing
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Television
    • Theater
  • Premium Content
  • Obituaries
  • Classifieds




Anderson County historian to discuss land & people before Oak Ridge

Posted at 10:22 am March 6, 2018
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Mary Harris

Mary Harris

Anderson County’s historian will discuss the land and people before Oak Ridge during a Thursday evening meeting.

Mary S. Harris is Anderson County historian and records custodian, a press release said.

She will be the featured speaker at the monthly public meeting of the Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association. It is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 8, at the Midtown Community Center’s Wildcat Den.

The city that is now Oak Ridge was picked for the Manhattan Project, a top-secret federal project to build the world’s first atomic weapons during World War II, more than 75 years ago, on September 19, 1942. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt authorized the Manhattan Project on December 28, 1942, and by then, work on the site where the first production facilities would be built here was already under way.

Oak Ridge became the home of two uranium enrichment plants (K-25 and Y-12), a liquid thermal diffusion plant (S-50), and a pilot plutonium production reactor (X-10 Graphite Reactor). (The K-25 site is now known as Heritage Center or East Tennessee Technology Park, X-10 is now known as Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Y-12 is now the Y-12 National Security Complex.)

The city, which eventually grew to a population of about 75,000 people, displaced some existing communities and farmland. The wartime 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.

Advertisement

The press release said Harris, the featured speaker on Thursday, worked in the Clerk and Master’s Office of the Anderson County Chancery Court in 1961. She was appointed and sworn in as deputy clerk and master by J. E. Lawson on April 6, 1967. She continued at that job until 1974, when she left to work full-time in her husband’s business, until she retired in 1988, the release said.

Not satisfied with retirement, she returned to volunteer her time working three days a week cleaning and sorting old records in the courthouse vault.

Harris was appointed county historian by the Anderson County Board of Commissioners on December 18, 1989, the press release said.

Finally, on April 6, 1993, at the insistence of County Executive Dave Bowling, she agreed to a full-time position as records custodian.

For the next few years, she attended the annual Archive Summit Conferences held in Nashville and other parts of the state, conducted by the Tennessee Department of State and the University of Tennessee. For her efforts, she received certificates for processing county records, archives management and design, and reference and public service of the Tennessee Archives Institute, the press release said.

These certificates, which were issued jointly by the Tennessee Department of State and the University of Tennessee, qualified her for a final certificate issued by the Department of State, which recognizes her as a certified archives manager.

As of today, she is still at work as Anderson County historian and records custodian, the press release said.

The Midtown Community Center is at 102 Robertsville Road in central Oak Ridge.

The Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association is a nonprofit historical society founded in 1999 to preserve and educate the public about Oak Ridge’s unique and rich technical and cultural history, and to work to preserve selected historical buildings of the World War II city and nuclear installations.

More information will be added as it becomes available.


Do you appreciate this story or our work in general? If so, please consider a monthly subscription to Oak Ridge Today. See our Subscribe page here. Thank you for reading Oak Ridge Today.

Copyright 2018 Oak Ridge Today. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Filed Under: Community, Federal, Front Page News, Government, U.S. Department of Energy Tagged With: Anderson County historian and records custodian, atomic weapons, county historian, K-25, land and people before Oak Ridge, Manhattan Project, Mary Harris, Midtown Community Center, Oak Ridge, Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association, records custodian, World War II, X-10, Y-12

Advertisements

Join the club!

If you appreciate our work, please consider subscribing. Besides helping us, your subscription will give you access to our premium content.

Most of our stories are free, brought to you by Oak Ridge Today with help from our members—advertisers, subscribers, and sponsors.

But some are premium content, available only to members. Those are in-depth, investigative, or exclusive stories that are available only on Oak Ridge Today. They generally require at least four hours to report, write, and publish.

You can subscribe for as little as $5 per month.

You can read more about your options here.

We currently offer five primary subscription options to readers, and they include benefits.

Basic

  • Basic monthly subscription ($5 per month)—access premium content
  • Basic annual subscription ($60 per year)—access premium content

Pro

  • Pro monthly subscription ($10 per month)—access premium content, get breaking news emails first, and submit one press release or public service announcement per month
  • Pro annual subscription ($100 per year)—save $20 per year, access premium content, get breaking news emails first, and submit one press release or public service announcement per month

Temporary

  • Temporary access ($3 per week for two weeks)

We also have advanced subscription options. You can see them here.

We also accept donations. You can donate here.

If you prefer to send a check for a subscription or donation, you may do so by mailing one to:

Oak Ridge Today
P.O. Box 6064
Oak Ridge, TN 37831

Thank you for your consideration and for reading Oak Ridge Today. We appreciate your support.

Commenting Guidelines

We welcome comments, but we ask you to follow a few guidelines:

1) Please use your real name, including last name. Please also use a valid e-mail address.
2) Be civil. Don't insult others, attack their character, or get personal.
3) Stick to the issues.
4) No profanity.
5) Keep your comments to a reasonable length and to a reasonable number per article.

We reserve the right to remove any comments that violate these guidelines. Comments held for review, usually from those posting for the first time, may not post if they violate these guidelines. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Thank you also for reading Oak Ridge Today and for participating in the discussion.

More information is available here.

More Community News

Breakfast with Legislators resumes Monday

The first Breakfast with the Legislators of this year will be Monday morning, and it will be an online meeting. The meeting, sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge, is scheduled to start at 7:30 a.m. … [Read More...]

CASA coordinator to discuss programs to help children

Amanda Brackett A CASA coordinator will discuss programs to help children during an online meeting at noon today (Tuesday, February 16). The speaker will be Amanda Brackett, Program Coordinator for CASA (Court … [Read More...]

Little Ponderosa Zoo has memorial for James Cox on Saturday

A notice of a memorial ceremony for James Cox, founder of Little Ponderosa Zoo and Rescue, posted by the zoo. There will be an outdoor memorial ceremony for James Michael Cox, founder of the Little Ponderosa Zoo and … [Read More...]

James Cox, founder of Little Ponderosa Zoo, dies

James Cox (Photo via Anderson County Sheriff's Office on Facebook) James Cox, the founder of Little Ponderosa Zoo and Rescue in Anderson County, died Tuesday. The cause of his death wasn't clear, although the zoo … [Read More...]

First Presbyterian Church of Oak Ridge

First Presbyterian offers free meal, groceries on Feb. 11

First Presbyterian Church will provide a free meal and bag of groceries to food-insecure guests who drive by the church between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 11, a press release said. The church’s monthly … [Read More...]

More Community

More Government News

Roane State helps with experiment to provide high-speed Internet access to rural communities

Roane State Community College played a crucial role in an experiment to get high-speed Internet to rural communities currently lacking what’s become an essential component of modern life. (Photo by Yvette … [Read More...]

Parking at Melton Lake Park to be closed for regatta March 13 & 14

Rowing at Melton Hill Lake (Photo courtesy City of Oak Ridge) The parking lots at Melton Lake Park will be closed to the public during a regatta next week. The regatta, the 2021 Oak Ridge Louisville Cardinal … [Read More...]

City of Oak Ridge Seal

Oak Ridge releases water quality report

The annual water quality report is now available for viewing on the City of Oak Ridge website, and the report says Oak Ridge water was in compliance with state and federal drinking water requirements, a press release … [Read More...]

Gov. Lee lifts nursing home restrictions, extends state of emergency

Bill Lee Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Friday said he has extended a limited state of emergency through April 28 and lifted state visitation restrictions on nursing homes and long-term care facilities. The … [Read More...]

TVA conducting maintenance at Bull Run

The Tennessee Valley Authority's Bull Run Fossil Plant is pictured above in Claxton on Monday, Aug. 27, 2018. (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today) The Tennessee Valley Authority is conducting routine … [Read More...]

More Government

More U.S. Department of Energy News

Granholm, a former governor, now energy secretary

Jennifer Granholm Note: This story was updated at 7:30 p.m. Jennifer Granholm, a former Michigan governor, was sworn in as energy secretary on Thursday. Granholm was the first female governor of Michigan, and … [Read More...]

Hear from ORNL scientists who worked on Perseverance mission

https://www.youtube.com/embed/mV1sYjE-zMU Video published on YouTube by Oak Ridge National Laboratory Three scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will discuss their work this afternoon on technologies for the … [Read More...]

Bienvenue named first executive director of Oak Ridge Institute

Joan Bienvenue Joan Bienvenue has been selected as the first executive director of the Oak Ridge Institute at the University of Tennessee. "The institute was established last year to align the expertise and … [Read More...]

ORISE report shows overall number of nuclear engineering degrees increases to highest level since 2016

Part of the ORAU campus in central Oak Ridge is pictured above on May 29, 2017. (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today) The number of nuclear engineering degrees awarded in 2019 were at the highest level since … [Read More...]

ORAU receives National Science Foundation grant to study greenhouse gases in Arctic

Praveena Krishnan The National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs has awarded ORAU a collaborative research grant to study greenhouse gas emissions in the Arctic. The award is valued at $581,829. The grant … [Read More...]

More DOE

Recent Posts

  • Victim of Claxton shooting reported to be in critical but stable condition
  • Oak Ridge man dies in motorcycle crash on Oak Ridge Turnpike
  • Roane State helps with experiment to provide high-speed Internet access to rural communities
  • Parking at Melton Lake Park to be closed for regatta March 13 & 14
  • Regatta season starts next week
  • ORISE receives DOE silver award for GreenBuy program
  • Blasius to discuss Downtown Oak Ridge on Tuesday
  • Oak Ridge releases water quality report
  • Granholm, a former governor, now energy secretary
  • Gov. Lee lifts nursing home restrictions, extends state of emergency

Search Oak Ridge Today

About Us

About Oak Ridge Today
What We Cover

How To

Advertise
Subscribe

Contact Us

Contact Oak Ridge Today

Copyright © 2021 Oak Ridge Today