World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseThe Clinton Engineer Works was established in Jan 1943 as a front company for the manufacturing for the Manhattan Project, which was the American effort to research and construct an atomic weapon. It was located in a quiet rural area called Black Oak Ridge across Roane County and Anderson County. It was considered suitable for this aspect of the Manhattan Project due to it being away from major population centers while offering enough potential workers, having a stable source of electricity, having ample water, and solid substratum. Land acquisition began in the fall of 1942, displacing over 1,000 families with some protest. In mid-1943, as employees slowly moved in, they named the newly established township Oak Ridge; meanwhile, Manhattan Project documents referred to the site as Site X. Facilities at the Clinton Engineer Works included the X-10 graphite reactor (also known as the Clinton Pile; a nuclear reactor with attached research laboratories), the Y-12 electromagnetic separation plant (for the enrichment of uranium-235), the K-25 gaseous diffusion plant (also for the enrichment of uranium-235), the S-50 liquid thermal diffusion plant (also for the enrichment of uranium-235), coal-fired power plants, and others. As expected, there was a decided focus on security, with all employees having to sign a security declaration that explicitly held them liable to the Espionage Act of 1917 and many subjected to screenings by lie detectors; nevertheless, Soviet spies such as George Koval and David Greenglass were able to infiltrate and to pass on sensitive information. In Jul 1945, the site made its final war time uranium-235 transport as it sent out the material that would ultimately be used in the Little Boy bomb which brought devastation to the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Site X was at its largest in terms of population in May 1945 when the Clinton Engineer Works employing 82,000 workers, 75,000 of whom lived in the Oak Ridge township. After the war, the work force began to be reduced, with the number of employees decreasing to 43,000 by late 1946. Various site operations were taken over by civilian companies, while services for the employees and their families saw a similar privatization. In Jan 1947, the Atomic Energy Commission took over the site. Later in the same year, Clinton Laboratories was renamed Clinton National Laboratory. In Jan 1948, it was renamed Oak Ridge National Laboratory; this name would survive until the time of this writing.

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