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Atomic Heritage Foundation launches new audio, visual program on Oak Ridge

Posted at 1:57 pm January 26, 2018
By Oak Ridge Today Staff Leave a Comment

Bill Wilcox 90th Birthday Party

Oak Ridge City Historian Bill Wilcox, who died in 2013, was a longtime advocate for preserving the city’s history, including parts of its federal facilities. Wilcox is pictured above at his 90th birthday party in the spring of 2013.

 

Submitted

“There was construction going on everywhere you looked,” Bill Wilcox remembered, describing his first impressions of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. “Trucks and people just crawling all over the place, hammers and banging. Wooden structures going up everywhere. Nothing was paved, and there weren’t any sidewalks.”

Wilcox was one of the thousands of people who moved to the new “Secret City” of Oak Ridge to work on the Manhattan Project, the top-secret World War II effort to develop an atomic bomb.

The Atomic Heritage Foundation has launched a new online interpretive program on Oak Ridge with 16 audio/visual vignettes. This beta program is part of AHF’s “Ranger in Your Pocket” series on the Manhattan Project, which focuses on former Manhattan Project sites and features vignettes with eyewitness accounts and expert commentary. AHF welcomes feedback and will improve and expand upon the program over the next year, a press release said.

In September 1942, Manhattan Project director General Leslie Groves designated “Site X,” approximately 59,000 acres of land on the Clinch River in rural eastern Tennessee, as the site for the project’s uranium production facilities. Approximately 3,000 people living in the area in five small farming communities were forced to leave their homes and land with minimal compensation. Construction of a new city began at breakneck speed. By the end of World War II, some 75,000 people would call Oak Ridge home, making it the fifth-largest city in Tennessee. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Community, Front Page News, Government, Nonprofits, Oak Ridge, U.S. Department of Energy Tagged With: atomic bomb, Atomic Heritage Foundation, Bill Wilcox, calutrons, Clinch River, Colleen Black, Denise Kiernan, electromagnetic separation, enriched uranium, gaseous diffusion, Gladys Evans, Hiroshima, IEEE Foundation, K-25, Leslie Groves, liquid thermal diffusion, Manhattan Project, Mary Lowe Michel, nuclear reactor, Oak Ridge, online interpretive program, Philip Abelson, plutonium production, Ranger in Your Pocket, Ray Stein, S-50, Site X, uranium enrichment, uranium isotopes, uranium production, William S. “Deak” Parsons, World War II, X-10, X-10 Graphite Reactor, Y-12

Obituary: Colleen Black

Posted at 11:20 pm March 21, 2015
By Oak Ridge Today Obituaries Leave a Comment

Colleen Black

Colleen Black

Colleen Black died peacefully Thursday, March 19, 2015, surrounded by her family.

Born Mary Colleen Rowan in Nashville, Tennessee, on July 21, 1925, Colleen was the second of 10 children to James Leo and Bess Rowan. She graduated from Cathedral High School in 1943.

Colleen and her entire family moved to Clinton Engineering Works (Oak Ridge) to help the war effort in 1944. Her life experiences in early Oak Ridge are documented in Denise Kiernan’s best seller “The Girls of Atomic City.” The book tells the exciting story of 19-year-old Colleen working for Ford, Bacon, and Davis as a leak detector at K-25. It was at K-25 that Colleen met a tall dark and handsome SED engineer—Clifford Black.

Colleen and Cliff were married at the Chapel on the Hill in November 1945. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Obituaries Tagged With: Colleen Black

Wanted: ‘Calutron Girls’

Posted at 10:35 pm February 16, 2015
By Oak Ridge Today Staff Leave a Comment

Y-12 Calutron Girls

The famous “Calutron Girls” photograph by Manhattan Project photographer Ed Westcott that prompted Denise Kiernan to write the best-seller “The Girls of Atomic City.”

 

Submitted

Wanted! “Calutron Girls” who worked at Y-12 during the Manhattan Project.

The Japanese Public Broadcasting Corporation wants to produce a documentary film to commemorate the end of World War II. Their program director representative has contacted Y-12 National Security Complex Historian D. Ray Smith and wants to interview some women who worked on the calutrons at Y-12. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Community, East Tennessee Technology Park, Entertainment, Front Page News, Movies, U.S. Department of Energy, Y-12 National Security Complex Tagged With: atomic bomb, Calutron Girls, Colleen Black, Denise Kiernan, documentary, Hiroshima, Japanese Public Broadcasting Corporation, K-25, Manhattan Project, Ray Smith, The Girls of Atomic City, World War II, Y-12

‘Secret City Girls’ featured at AAUW luncheon Monday

Posted at 8:13 pm October 27, 2013
By Oak Ridge Today Staff Leave a Comment

Taking a cue from the book, “The Girls of the Atomic City,” by Denise Kiernan, the Monday luncheon program of the AAUW Oak Ridge Branch will feature a panel of Girls of the Secret City, a press release said.

Colleen Black, Lynn Fortenbery, Cleva Marrow, and Dot Wilkinson will share their experiences about how they came to Oak Ridge from various states and the early days in the new community and their varied jobs, the release said. They will talk about their first impressions of Oak Ridge and happenings in their new home town. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Community, Front Page News Tagged With: AAUW, AAUW Oak Ridge Branch, American Association of University Women, Cleva Marrow, Colleen Black, Denise Kiernan, Dot Wilkinson, First Presbyterian Church, Lynn Fortenbery, Secret City Girls, The Girls of the Atomic City

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Classifieds

Public Notice: NNSA announces no significant impact of Y-12 Development Organization operations at Horizon Center

AVAILABILITY OF THE FINAL ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT FOR THE OFFSITE HOUSING OF THE Y-12 DEVELOPMENT … [Read More...]

ADFAC seeks contractors for five homes

Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties (ADFAC) is a non-profit community based agency, … [Read More...]

Public notice: Draft environmental assessment for Y-12 Development Organization at Horizon Center

AVAILABILITY OF THE DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT FOR THE OFFSITE HOUSING OF THE Y-12 DEVELOPMENT … [Read More...]

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