Manhattan Project

Even though we lived in Tennessee for 23 years, we had never gone to Oakridge to see all the stuff there about the Manhattan Project. In case you don't know, this was the code name for building the atom bomb that ended World War II. Oakridge is a town just outside Knoxville that the government built for this project. It was a "secret" town that wasn't placed on any maps until after the war ended. Although thousands of people worked there, they had no idea what they were working on. It's hard to believe in this day of the internet, CNN and instant everything. They only knew they were working on something important.

There's a great museum there that explains how the town came about, with lots of interesting tidbits from the era. We also heard a talk by a gentleman who has just published a book of black and white pictures from Oakridge during the Manhattan project.