AmericanPressTravelNews-May 16th,–Bob and Barb “On the Road Again” & “Stopping to Smell 
the Roses”- this time in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. High security still is de rigueur in Oak Ridge’s tech centers and buildings.
The once little burg of just farmers and land scratchers for their daily living, known as Oak Ridge was established by the US government in 1942 to serve as a home base to the Manhattan Project.
The entire city had to be built almost from scratch to handle the influx of employee/residents, which mushroomed from about 3,000 to 75,000 within 3 years. Only a few of the employees, mostly women, knew what was being built at the time, or exactly what they were getting into.
Oak Ridge back then was, in a lot of ways, like about any neat little southern city—there was plenty of leisure activities including swimming, a library, 13 grocery stores, an orchestra, and swing dancing. Besides the required badges, guard towers and giant perimeter fence, it was practically a wartime Mayberry. Everyone was quarantined, and their duties left the actual project a mystery. It wasn’t until we dropped the atomic bomb on Japan that the nice citizens of Oak Ridge realized what they had become a part of.
Two years after WWII ended, the city was relinquished to civilians. When visiting the city today, you can still see some of the old guard towers on the edges of the city, and experience one of the nation’s largest swimming pools still in operation. For $5 with valid US photo identification, you can go on a tour hosted by the American Museum of Science and Energy which includes the old graphite reactors as well as the Y-12 museum in an operational government facility with a billboard right outside that reminds employees to keep secrets a secret.
For a special treat, stop in the museum afterwards to see the brilliant photos of Ed Westcott, the official photographer during wartime.
The Secret City Festival, complete with WWII reenactors, happens every June. For more information go: www.amse.org and visit or head to Anderson County Tourism Council Welcome Center 115 Welcome Lane, Clinton, TN. 865-457-4547
