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K-25 History Center has grand opening this month

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The K-25 History Center will have a grand opening ceremony on Thursday, February 27.

The ceremony, which will include a ribbon-cutting, is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Thursday, February 27, at 652 Enrichment Street in west Oak Ridge.

The K-25 site, now known as Heritage Center, was built during World War II to help enrich uranium for the top-secret Manhattan Project, a federal program to build the world’s first atomic bombs. K-25 helped enrich uranium for “Little Boy,” a nuclear weapon dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, shortly before the end of World War II.

After the war, K-25 enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and commercial nuclear power plants through the Cold War. The site was shut down in the mid-1980s, and it is being cleaned up and converted into a private industrial park. The site’s large uranium enrichment buildings have been demolished and so have many of the support buildings. Most of the cleanup is expected to be completed this year.

[Read more…]

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Oak Ridge History Museum presents 1940s music on Saturday

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The Oak Ridge History Museum will host an evening of 1940s music by the Oak Ridge High School Choral Ensemble and the Oak Ridge High School Jazz Band on Saturday, January 18, at 7 p.m.

Admission is free, although donations to the museum are certainly welcome, a press release said.

The Oak Ridge History Museum (www.oakridgemuseum.com) is located at 102 Robertsville Road in Oak Ridge, across the street from the Kroger Marketplace.

This press release was submitted by a subscriber to Oak Ridge Today.

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Learn about women in the Manhattan Project on Dec. 21

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Close up of welding in prefabrication shop 1944 (Photo courtesy National Park Service)

What was life like for women and women scientists during World War II and the Manhattan Project?

You can join National Park Service staff on Saturday, December 21, as they discuss the social changes that occurred during World War II and how that affected women in the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first atomic weapons during the war, and it included Oak Ridge.

The December 21 program is free to the public, but if you would like to explore the Children’s Museum, you will need to pay admission at the front desk. The Children’s Museum is located at 461 West Outer Drive in Oak Ridge.

[Read more…]
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Oak Ridge’s oldest structure recognized with historical sign

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Freels-Bend-Cabin-Historical-Marker-Oct-20-2019
Photo courtesy D. Ray Smith

Note: This story was updated at 12:30 p.m.

The Freels Bend Cabin, Oak Ridge’s oldest structure, was recognized with a historical sign in October.

The historical sign by the Tennessee Historical Commission said the Freels Bend Cabin, next to Melton Hill Lake east of Clark Center Park in south Oak Ridge, is the only Oak Ridge home that is still standing that was built in the 1800s.

It was one of the earliest cabins built in Anderson County. It’s on the National Historic Register.

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Manhattan Project Park: Ride with a Ranger on Saturday

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You can join a National Park Service park ranger for a bike ride on the North Boundary Greenway on Saturday, May 25, 2019, to see how the former communities of the area have changed during the past 75 years. (Photo courtesy National Park Service)

You can join a National Park Service ranger for a bike ride on the North Boundary Greenway to see how the former communities of the area have changed during the past 75 years.

The free program is presented by the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which includes Oak Ridge.

The bike ride program will start at 10 a.m. Saturday, October 19, at the Turnpike Gatehouse and travel down Big Oak Trail and North Boundary Road.

“Along the ride, we will explore the former communities that were here before the Manhattan Project,” a press release said. “Rangers will stop several times along the bike ride to point out the rich history that is found within the Oak Ridge area.”

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Manhattan Project Park: Commemorate tennis court dances in Jackson Square

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Oak Ridge Tennis Court Dance NPS
This undated photo shows a tennis court dance in Oak Ridge. (Photo courtesy National Park Service)

The Manhattan Project National Historical Park will commemorate the tennis court dances that occurred in Jackson Square 75 years ago with a dance and costume contest in October.

The Tennis Court Dance and Costume Contest is scheduled from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, October 11, in the Jackson Square tennis courts. The free event will feature swing dancing music from the 1940s World War II era.

The National Park Service is partnering with Explore Oak Ridge to host the dance, a press release said.

“All ages are welcome to attend and everyone is encouraged to participate in the costume contest with their best 1940s costume,” the press release said. “One winner will be announced for best individual costume and one for group costumes.”

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ORHPA to celebrate $80,000 grant at History Museum

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Photo by Oak Ridge History Museum

The Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association will celebrate its 20th anniversary and the receipt of an S80,000 state grant during a ceremony on Saturday.

The state grant is for the new Oak Ridge History Museum, a press release said.

The public is invited to Saturday’s ceremony. The Oak Ridge History Museum is at 102 Robertsville Road in central Oak Ridge.

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Oak Ridge hosts Energy Communities Alliance meeting on national park

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Energy Communities Alliance Manhattan Project Park Group 2019
Some of the attendees of the Energy Communities Alliance meeting in Oak Ridge are pictured above in August 2019. (Photo courtesy City of Oak Ridge)

The City of Oak Ridge hosted visitors from across the country as part of the recent Energy Communities Alliance Peer Exchange focused on the continued implementation of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, a press release said.

The meeting, held on August 14 and 15 in Oak Ridge, had an excellent turnout with many guests from the additional national park host communities of Los Alamos, New Mexico, and the cities near Hanford, Washington, making the trip to Oak Ridge, the press release said. Other attendees traveled from Aiken, South Carolina, to learn more about Oak Ridge and the national park, the release said.

Local officials, including Oak Ridge Mayor Warren Gooch, Roane County Executive Ron Woody, Oak Ridge City Council member Chuck Hope, and City Manager Mark Watson welcomed the invitees. National Park Service officials and representatives from tourism bureaus, historical societies, and economic development councils also took part. Oak Ridge Mayor Pro Tem Rick Chinn and City Council members Ellen Smith, Kelly Callison, Jim Dodson, and Derrick Hammond attended sessions as well.

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Learn more about history of desegregation on Sept. 9

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Rose Weaver
Rose Weaver

You can learn more about the history of desegregation and profiles of those who have shaped the area during a September 9 meeting in Oak Ridge.

It’s a kick-off meeting for Women’s Interfaith Dialogue of Oak Ridge. It is scheduled to start with a brief meet-and-greet at 10:45 a.m. Monday, Saturday 9, at St. Stephens Episcopal Church at 212 North Tulane Avenue, and the program will start at 11 a.m.

Rose Weaver—an active member of the Oak Ridge community, a poet, and a historian—is currently working on researching the history of desegregation of the area and the people who have had the greatest impacts in shaping Oak Ridge, a press release said.

Weaver will also speak about the exciting NAACP Tennessee State Convention that is being hosted in Oak Ridge from Thursday, September 26, through Saturday, September 28, the press release said.

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Manhattan Project: Walk through Wheat with park ranger on Sept. 14

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Wheat Community Before the Manhattan Project
The Wheat community before the Manhattan Project during World War II in the area that is now west Oak Ridge. (Photo submitted by National Park Service)

Join a park ranger for a walk through the pre-Manhattan Project community of Wheat on Saturday, September 14.

Wheat was in what is now west Oak Ridge, around the area of Heritage Center, the former K-25 site. It was one of several local communities displaced by the Manhattan Project, a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first atomic weapons during World War II.

Oak Ridge and two other sites involved in the Manhattan Project—Hanford, Washington, and Los Alamos, New Mexico—are now part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.

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Tour Freels cabin—oldest structure in Oak Ridge—on Saturday

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historic-freels-band-cabin
The Historic Freels Bend Cabin is pictured above. (Photo courtesy Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association)

The last Oak Ridge Reservation Nature Walk of 2019 will be held at the historic Freels cabin—the oldest structure in Oak Ridge—on Saturday.

The cabin is on Freels Bend near Melton Hill Lake in south Oak Ridge, east of Clark Center Park. It was built in 1844, and it’s been reported to be on the National Historic Register.

The opportunities to see the cabin are rare because it’s on restricted U.S. Department of Energy land.

Saturday’s walk is titled “History of the Oak Ridge Reservation—Freels Bend.” Registered walkers will meet at 1 p.m. in the parking lot behind the ORISE building at the corner of Bethel Valley and Pumphouse roads, a press release said.

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McDaniel completes Oak Ridge oral history project

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Keith McDaniel interviews Oak Ridge Historian Ray Smith at the Oak Ridge History Museum for the Center for Oak Ridge Oral History. (Submitted photo)

Filmmaker Keith McDaniel has completed a nine-year project to document the oral histories of about 400 current and former Oak Ridge residents, including those connected to the Manhattan Project during World War II.

The life stories were used to build a digital collection for the Oak Ridge Public Library’s Center for Oak Ridge Oral History, or COROH. McDaniel was part of the group that made plans for the COROH and, following the city’s receipt of an annual grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, took the contract for the documentary work.

“A lot of original Oak Ridgers were dying and getting older,” McDaniel said in a press release from Carson-Newman University. “We felt it was really important to collect their memories, to collect their stories.”

The one-on-one filmed interviews gave those connected to the Manhattan Project, and later to the city at large, the opportunity to share their life stories, the press release said.

[Read more…]

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