0:02 [SPEAKER_01]: On a warm summer day in 1900, the village idiot of Oak Ridge, Tennessee laid on his back in the middle of the woods and heard the voice of God. 0:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Returning home, he told his wife, in the woods, as I lay on the ground and looked up into the sky, there came to me a voice as loud and as sharp as thunder. 0:20 [SPEAKER_01]: The voice told me to sleep with my head on the ground for forty nights and I would be shown visions of what the future holds for this land. 0:28 [SPEAKER_01]: So, John Hendrick slept on the ground for 40 days, and on the 41st day, he emerged from the forest with a vision and a dire need for a bath. 0:38 [SPEAKER_01]: He said, quote, 0:57 [SPEAKER_01]: and there will be great noise and confusion, and the earth will shake. 1:01 [SPEAKER_01]: I've seen it, it's coming. 1:03 [SPEAKER_01]: To which his wife, friends and neighbors replied, O bless his heart, which in the south means something very different to what you might be thinking. 1:11 [SPEAKER_01]: And if you know this part of East Tennessee, don't know how crazy Hendricks was. 1:15 [SPEAKER_01]: These hills are isolated, and there's no natural reason for a city to ever be here. 1:21 [SPEAKER_01]: But everything he described came true. 1:25 [SPEAKER_01]: In the 1940s, decades after Hendricks' death, one of the most important cities in the history of civilization was founded on Oak Ridge when the World All-Train Manhattan Project made this area its district headquarters, no one knows how Hendricks predicted all of this, during his lifetime he was seen as a madman, but his prophecy remains one of the strangest and unlikelyest ever recorded. 1:48 [SPEAKER_01]: In 1942, the continent of Europe was crumbling, under an onslaught of Nazi innovation and ingenuity. 1:55 [SPEAKER_01]: Nazi soldiers were winning. 1:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Nazi generals were winning, and Nazi scientists were winning. 2:00 [SPEAKER_01]: They were dominating the battlefields of the Second World War, and they were also inventing new aircraft, computers, rockets, poison gases, torpedoes, and more. 2:10 [SPEAKER_01]: If they also managed to invent the atomic bomb, the world would be over. 2:14 [SPEAKER_01]: The modern world will belong to Adolf Hitler, but Albert Einstein had signed a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt, encouraging him to establish an American nuclear program with the goal of beating the Nazis to nuclear power, and the science fiction terror of the atomic bomb. 2:32 [SPEAKER_01]: As a result, the Manhattan Project was founded, and the core of its operation were located in the same hills where Hendrix had walked and slept and prophesied. 2:41 [SPEAKER_01]: But the choice of Oak Ridge as the centerpiece for the Manhattan Project was less in mythical revelation than it was the result of old fashioned, good old boy politics. 2:52 [SPEAKER_01]: During my recent visit to the American Museum of Science and Energy, known as AMSE, Oak Ridge City historian Dr. Ray Smith told me the story. 3:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Albert Einstein had written a letter to President Roosevelt saying Germany is buying up all this uranium ore and he was afraid they were going to try and build a bomb out of it. 3:16 [SPEAKER_00]: So Roosevelt knew it would be an expensive undertaking so he put general growth in charge of what came to be known as the Manhattan Project. 3:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And he also called in Senator Mackeller. 3:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Senator Mackeller was a Senator from Tennessee and what he told him was Senator I need to put 3:35 [SPEAKER_00]: against the war effort, and I can't let the press or anyone know how much it is, or what it's being useful. 3:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Can you help me with that? 3:44 [SPEAKER_00]: Senator McCuller said yes, Mr. President, I can do that for you. 3:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Just worry and tell the sea, or you don't put that down. 3:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Now that likely have more to do with us getting selected here in East Tennessee for the Manhattan Project than any rivers and valleys and bridges and proximity to a dam. 4:03 [SPEAKER_00]: But at any rate, about August of 1945, some 75,000 people. 4:08 [SPEAKER_00]: were living here were some 3,000 that get off of their property in order to make room for them about 60,000 acres was taken. 4:18 [SPEAKER_00]: And 75,000 people living in the city of Oak Ridge, 4:23 [SPEAKER_00]: We're working mostly at the Y-12 plant and the K-25 Gashist diffusion plant and the X-10 graphite reactor. 4:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Those three sites along with S50, which was a thermal diffusion plant, were the industrial production facilities that actually produced the uranium used in a little more, the first 4:47 [SPEAKER_00]: ever used in war, which was dropped on Hiroshima. 4:51 [SPEAKER_00]: So Oak Ridge came into existence between September, 42, September, actually, to when it was selected. 4:59 [SPEAKER_00]: And was actually behind fences and gates, gates on all of the entrances coming into the city. 5:06 [SPEAKER_00]: And that lasted throughout the war or two, and then even until March of 1949, 5:13 [SPEAKER_00]: The field's largest city in the state of Tennessee was not on any myops and had gates on the roads coming into it until March of 1949. 5:22 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's how we came to be Oak Ridge and East Tennessee. 5:28 [SPEAKER_01]: For the first seven years of his existence, Oak Ridge was basically a secret city whose purpose was hidden even from the people who lived and worked there. 5:36 [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't represented on any official government maps, and every road entering the city was skated and guarded by the military. 5:43 [SPEAKER_01]: Until 1949, only Manhattan Project employees and their families could ever come inside. 5:51 [SPEAKER_02]: Oak Ridge opened to the world. 5:52 [SPEAKER_02]: That's when the American Museum of Science and Energy opened to the world. 5:54 [SPEAKER_02]: So we've been open to that same day in different facilities than we are now, but that's when this museum opened. 6:00 [SPEAKER_01]: That's Alan Low, executive director of AMSE, who also worked at the Lincoln Roosevelt and Bush presidential libraries and museums. 6:09 [SPEAKER_02]: The years ago, I was acting director the FDR library museum of a high-part New York great place, and I held the Einstein letter in my hands that he sent to FDR, and that was in 1939, 6:20 [SPEAKER_02]: So you think about this massive effort here and around the country. 6:24 [SPEAKER_02]: And Manhattan Project had the three main sites, but many other sites were engaged in the effort. 6:29 [SPEAKER_02]: Amazing, that was kept secret, first of all. 6:31 [SPEAKER_02]: But also amazing that it happened so relatively fast. 6:34 [SPEAKER_02]: That first letter to Roosevelt, where you didn't really know what was going on, that Einstein sent, thanks to Dr. Zalard. 6:41 [SPEAKER_02]: He was the guy who said, Zalard wrote, yeah. 6:44 [SPEAKER_02]: But he knew, FDR would know Einstein. 6:46 [SPEAKER_02]: That certainly was a famous name by then. 6:49 [SPEAKER_02]: but again that first inkling that this is possible to then developing that bomb was a remarkably fast effort and it's to see the level of initiative about folks here in Oak Ridge and what they had to do but then most of them not knowing what the final product was going to be I don't know today if that would be possible but it was then thankfully. 7:12 [SPEAKER_00]: We couldn't get the paperwork done and they got it tattooed. 7:16 [SPEAKER_02]: That's what the sign-up did. 7:18 [SPEAKER_01]: So going back to what you were saying initially, was there a population of people here before the government wanted to come in? 7:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, there were 3,000 people living on a thousand farms. 7:30 [SPEAKER_00]: And the little communities like wheat, Robert Sveel, New Bethel, New Hope. 7:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Those little communities had again had been established by the European settlers coming in here. 7:42 [SPEAKER_00]: and was well-established. 7:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Had been for hundreds of years really because they came in the late 17 hundreds, and then here in the 1900s, middle-1900s. 7:52 [SPEAKER_00]: This massive movement to have them leave their farms. 7:57 [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't have automobiles, they didn't have trucks to move their belongings, but they did have young men in the military getting killed. 8:05 [SPEAKER_00]: So they wanted to do anything they could to stop the killing and end the war. 8:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Most of them got off their property in a matter of days. 8:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Now some of those people that had to leave had about 10 years earlier, 8:19 [SPEAKER_00]: In 1933, they started building Norris down. 8:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Those people, some of them, moved down to this area. 8:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And then, a few years later, had to move again. 8:30 [SPEAKER_00]: I even heard of some people that moved out of the Smoking Mountains, out of the Catescoe area. 8:36 [SPEAKER_00]: went up to the area that Norris down then was built and then came down here where the man hadn't project was built. 8:43 [SPEAKER_02]: Don't let that out every 10 years ago, what comes along, but it's us, but because those are massive government projects, obviously the park and then TVA was TVA made a hadn't project possible here, but it's a power supply. 8:56 [SPEAKER_00]: This is a different era. 8:58 [SPEAKER_00]: People would not. 8:59 [SPEAKER_00]: They would. 9:00 [SPEAKER_00]: go up in arms. 9:01 [SPEAKER_00]: If you come and told them, you're going to have to move all the york on move. 9:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Not then. 9:06 [SPEAKER_00]: They wanted to help when the war. 9:08 [SPEAKER_00]: They were willing to sacrifice. 9:10 [SPEAKER_00]: People who were looking who were graduating from college, many of them would only accept work. 9:16 [SPEAKER_00]: That was war work. 9:17 [SPEAKER_00]: In other words, they needed to do something. 9:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Remember, you're talking about 60 million people killed, largest amount of death and more that we know of. 9:30 [SPEAKER_00]: And you might also add at this point, we haven't had a global conflict of that magnitude sense. 9:37 [SPEAKER_00]: You might attribute some of that to nuclear weapons. 9:41 [SPEAKER_00]: It's unthinkable to have a war now, because it would be so destructive. 9:46 [SPEAKER_01]: The museum started around the same time of Ridge was formed. 9:50 [SPEAKER_01]: How did that happen? 9:52 [SPEAKER_00]: the atomic energy commission worked hard to transfer Oak Ridge. 9:59 [SPEAKER_00]: At first, it was a government town completely, everything owned by the atomic energy commission starting in 1947. 10:06 [SPEAKER_00]: By 49, they were beginning to realize this needs to be a regular city, it needs to not be government-supported, totally. 10:16 [SPEAKER_00]: So they began this transition effort that actually took until 1959, took 10 years to go from 49 to 59 where they first opened it to the public in 49 and then in 59 and 60 that time period. 10:32 [SPEAKER_00]: It was incorporated and Oak Ridge became a normal city in the state of Tennessee. 10:38 [SPEAKER_00]: In that transition period, all of the homes that were here were sold to the people who were living in them. 10:44 [SPEAKER_00]: They had been paying rent up until then. 10:47 [SPEAKER_00]: All of the commercial establishments were transferred sold to people who would 10:53 [SPEAKER_00]: own them and run them instead of just leasing them. 10:56 [SPEAKER_00]: As a part of that transition of warning people to understand about atomic energy, that again, remember from 45 to Euro up in the 49 and you're beginning to put the information out about what has been done, a major. 11:14 [SPEAKER_00]: change in the way we think about potential for energy. 11:18 [SPEAKER_00]: People wanted to understand what atomic bombs, atomic energy, the Cold War was starting. 11:25 [SPEAKER_00]: So one of the things they wanted to do was to put a museum together that could actually explain 11:33 [SPEAKER_00]: to the general public. 11:35 [SPEAKER_00]: What was going on scientifically? 11:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Now notice the name of it. 11:39 [SPEAKER_00]: It was the American Museum of Atomic Energy. 11:43 [SPEAKER_00]: It's now the American Museum of Science and Energy. 11:46 [SPEAKER_00]: but it is the American museum that focuses on the nuclear aspects of what had been done primarily in Oak Ridge but also in Hanford, Washington and Los Alamos, 60 cents of every dollar spent there in the Manhattan Project was spent right here in Oak Ridge. 12:04 [SPEAKER_00]: So it was a large portion of that Manhattan Project story and they put that museum in place to tell that story. 12:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Sure, I do. 12:16 [SPEAKER_00]: It's because it's located on Black Oak Ridge. 12:20 [SPEAKER_00]: All of the ridges here are named many of them are named for trees, chestnut ridge, pine ridge, there's two pine ridges. 12:27 [SPEAKER_00]: But they're in 1943, they first, this place, it has an interesting story about names. 12:33 [SPEAKER_00]: The first thing it was named was the Kingston Demolition Range. 12:37 [SPEAKER_00]: and they thought that sounds a little bit ominous and tells what we're doing when we're going to. 12:42 [SPEAKER_00]: So they immediately changed the name to the Clinton engineer works. 12:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, the Army Corps of Engineers did that, and their standard practice was to name, 12:53 [SPEAKER_00]: a district for the main city and the district. 12:57 [SPEAKER_00]: For example, the Manhattan District was named because it was located in New York City. 13:02 [SPEAKER_00]: When they started the Manhattan Project, they just took that same name, Manhattan, and called it a project instead of a district because it was bigger than a district. 13:12 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's how the Manhattan Project cut its name. 13:15 [SPEAKER_00]: The Clinton-engineer works was named because of the standard approach the Corps of Engineers used to pick the largest city, Clinton is a county seat, so they just used that name. 13:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And then the name of the city, they really just wanted something that would not call attention to it. 13:35 [SPEAKER_00]: and someone suggested just use a grid. 13:38 [SPEAKER_00]: It's own black oak bridge. 13:39 [SPEAKER_00]: The city lays on the south side of black oak bridge and down in East Fort Valley. 13:46 [SPEAKER_00]: So it was just simple to do and it did not call attention to it because of the other ridges that are in the area. 13:54 [SPEAKER_00]: So oak bridge was just chosen. 13:57 [SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned that there was offense and gates. 13:59 [SPEAKER_00]: How you had to go through? 14:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it had to realize the clench river borders Oak Ridge on three sides east, south, and west. 14:08 [SPEAKER_00]: So, no need for offense. 14:10 [SPEAKER_00]: You've got a river that is a boundary. 14:12 [SPEAKER_00]: But on all of the, and in fact, there were nine seven main roads coming into Oak Ridge, two others that were used just during shift change. 14:22 [SPEAKER_00]: But on those seven roads coming in, they placed a gate at the city limits. 14:28 [SPEAKER_00]: And then in 1949, when they opened it to the public, they opened up the main roads, but they built guardhouses to isolate the three government facilities. 14:40 [SPEAKER_01]: Did anyone ever figure out how much money people spent? 14:44 [SPEAKER_00]: There was about $2 little over $2 billion. 14:47 [SPEAKER_00]: About $20 billion in today's dollars, but spent a little over $2 billion for them and then. 14:58 [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to release a bonus episode where Alan and Ray take us a little deeper into the science of Oak Ridge and the nuclear process. 15:05 [SPEAKER_01]: But for now, I'd like to encourage you to visit the American Museum of Science and Energy and the other facilities and the Oak Ridge Museum Network.
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