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A. R. Starrett

5/12/17

Gryphon

American History N4

The city of Oak Ridge widely touts itself as the most important small town in the

world. And, in a certain sense, this is true. The city was the site of the Manhattan Project, which

shaped the conclusion of World War II and shaped the Cold War in its entirety. However, Oak

Ridge itself was largely uninvolved after the end of the war. When the city was handed back over

to civilians and allowed to become a mostly-average smallish Appalachian city, it was no longer

heavily involved with developing these instruments of war. But what did it do? What happened

to the once-Secret City after the bombs fell?

The most well-known and thus most obvious project the city contributed was and is the

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Despite being something of a continuation of the

Manhattan Project, the lab has next to no involvement with weaponry (and is actually partially

managed by the University of Tennessee); instead, its specialties lie in development of

computing hardware technology, which includes the development of civilian technologies and

more advanced industrial supercomputer development (including the fastest supercomputer in

the United States (and third-fastest in the world), the ORACLE) and nuclear power, the latter of

which the city is known for in particular, mainly due to connections to the Department of Energy

(especially the local Office of Scientific and Technical Information) and the above-stated nuclear

bombs (which the city clearly encourages, considering the atom on the city seal). This is fitting,
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considering that some of the citys most ambitious long-term projects have been the development

of highly efficient nuclear energy projects to power the city and its neighbors. However, the city

is still involved with the development of weaponry. The Y-12 National Security Complex is

dedicated to the development and construction of bomb parts, in particular those used in nuclear

weapons, and the K-25 plant was built to enrich uranium for the same military purpose.

Federal and military projects are not the only widespread initiatives in the city today.

Expanded use of renewable energy has become a major priority for the city government in recent

years, with the development of nuclear power of course taking precedent. However, natural gas

and wind power are also gaining widespread use in the area, due the abundance of these

resources in Appalachia, as well as hydroelectricity by taking advantage of the Tennessee Valley

Authoritys damming and energy projects across the region, as do its neighboring cities. These

projects are used to both combat the economic and environmental damage of inefficient and

nonrenewable energy sources used by the city in the past, as well as curbing the unemployment

caused by nuclear disarmament programs and the ongoing decline of the nearby coal- and

metal-mining operations.

Agriculture and mining has historically been an important aspect of the city and the

general region, though mining in particular has steadily lost economic relevance in the region

due to advancements in technology and inaccessibility of unmined pockets of materials such as

coal and various metals. Agriculture, meanwhile, has steadily lost relevance mostly due to

shortsighted farming techniques and better land becoming accessible in other regions. Luckily,

local manufacturing, construction, and energy projects have been continuously used by federal,
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state, and city governments to lessen the damage of these ongoing problems on both the citys

economy and that of the general Appalachia and East Tennessee regions.

Due to its unique history, the economic impact of Oak Ridge is different from any other

city in the United States. From the technological developments of the Oak Ridge National Lab to

the Office of Scientific and Technical Informations diffusion of scientific information to the

masses, as well as the various regional details such as the TVA and mining operations make the

local economy another aspect of what makes Oak Ridge the fascinating city it is today.
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Sources:

Bradley, Mike. City Wants to Move Beyond the Bomb. The Knoxville Journal, June 26, 1988.

UT-Battelle Institute. ORNL. UT-Battelle, 2003.

H.R. 3474 - A bill to authorize appropriations to the Energy Research and Development

Administration in accordance with section 261 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended,

section 305 of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, and section 16 of the Federal Nonnuclear

Energy Research and Development Act of 1974, and for other purposes.

H.R.2916 - Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development, Independent

Agencies Appropriations Act, 1990

O'Neill, R. V., et al. Economic Growth and Sustainability: A New Challenge. Ecological

Applications, vol. 6, no. 1, 1996, pp. 2324. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2269544.