Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Hendrix, in light of his tales of prophetic visions, was considered insane by most and at one point was institutionalized. His grave lies in an area of Oak Ridge now known as the Hendrix Creek Subdivision. There are ongoing concerns over the preservation of his gravestone, as the man who owns the lot adjacent to the grave wishes to build a home there, while members of the Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association are fighting to have a monument placed on the site of his grave.

In October 1942, the United States Army Corps of Engineers began acquiring approximately in the Oak Ridge area for the Manhattan Project. Due to the project's urgency and secrecy, the Corps' "declaration of taking" was swift and final. Many residents came home to find eviction notices on their doors. Others found out when their children came home from school with a message from the principal: Senator McKellar wants me to tell you to go home and tell your parents you are going to have to find another place to live." There was no further explanation. All the students were told was, "The government is going to take your property for the war effort." Several families who had moved to the Oak Ridge area after displacement by the Tennessee Valley Authority were displaced again by the Manhattan Project campaign. Although the area's original residents were allowed to be buried in existing cemeteries, every coffin was reportedly opened for inspection.

When Tennessee Governor Prentice Cooper was officially handed the July 1943 presidential proclamation by a junior officer (a lieutenant)—making Oak Ridge a military district not subject to state control—he tore it up and refused to see the Manhattan Project engineer, Lieutenant Colonel James C. Marshall. The new district engineer, Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Nichols, had to placate him. Cooper came to see the project (except for the production facilities under construction) on November 3, 1943, and he appreciated the bourbon-laced punch served (although Anderson County was "dry").

House and dormitory accommodations to support construction workers contracted to build the Clinton Engineer Works (CEW) in Oak Ridge were basic, consisting of trailers, barracks, and many "hutments"—pre-fabricated five-person huts heated by a central coal-powered furnace. Construction camps were segregated between black workers and white workers. Two of the largest were Gamble Valley, with up to 4,000 trailer spaces, and Happy Valley, whose population grew from about 5,000 to about 15,000. In addition to trailers and hutments, the camp towns included various recreational buildings (e.g., theaters and bowling alleys), cafeterias, and commissaries. Medical care was provided by Army doctors and hospitals, with civilians paying $2.50 per month ($5 for families) to the medical insurance fund.

Planned community

The location and low population helped keep the town a secret, though the settlement grew from 3,000 to 3,750 in 1942 to about 75,000 by 1945. Because of the large number of workers recruited to the area for the Manhattan Project, the Army planned a town for project workers at the eastern end of the valley. The time required for the project's completion caused the Army to opt for a relatively permanent establishment rather than an enormous camp. The name "Oak Ridge" was chosen for the settlement in 1943 from suggestions submitted by project employees. The name evoked the settlement's location along Black Oak Ridge, and officials thought the rural-sounding name "held outside curiosity to a minimum". The name was formally adopted in 1949.

The architectural and engineering firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was contracted to provide the layout for the town and house designs. John O. Merrill moved to Tennessee to take charge of designing Oak Ridge's secret buildings. He directed the creation of a town, which soon had of roads, of railroad track, ten schools, seven theaters, 17 restaurants and cafeterias, and 13 supermarkets. A library with 9,400 books, a symphony orchestra, sporting facilities, church services for 17 denominations, and a Fuller Brush Company salesman served the new city and its 75,000 residents. No airport was built, for security reasons. The names of the main avenues generally progressed alphabetically from east to west (e.g., Alabama Avenue in the east, Vermont Avenue in the west), and the names of the smaller streets began with the same letter as the main avenue from which they started (e.g., streets connected to Florida Avenue began with "F").

The dramatic population increase and the secret nature of the project meant chronic shortages of housing and supplies during the war years. The town was administered by Turner Construction Company through a subsidiary named the Roane-Anderson Company. But most residents knew their "landlord" as "MSI" (Management Services, Inc.). All workers wore badges. The town was surrounded by guard towers and a fence with seven gates.

Segregation and desegregation

Oak Ridge was developed by the federal government as a segregated community at the insistence of the Southern bloc of Democrats in Congress, which authorized its funding. Because Black workers generally held lower-ranked jobs, their assigned dwellings were predominantly government-built "hutments" (one-room shacks) very close to the Y-12 plant, in the one residential area designated as colored. Nichols, the MED District Engineer, was told by the main construction contractor for the K-25 plant that the black construction labor force had a large turnover rate, so Nichols gave permission to set up a separate black women's camp. When Groves visited the plant with K. T. Keller of Chrysler, Keller saw twelve Black women sweeping the 30-foot wide alley between the production units, and said, "Nichols, don't you know there is a machine made to sweep a concrete floor like this?" Nichols replied, "Sure I do, but these gals can do more than one of those machines". The men had an opportunity to "fracas" on Saturday night, and labor turnover had reduced.

During the war, plans were made for a colored neighborhood of houses equal in quality to those for whites, but it was not implemented because of limited resources. After the war, all hutments were dismantled, and a colored neighborhood of permanent houses was developed in the Gamble Valley area, which during wartime had been occupied by a white trailer community.

Oak Ridge elementary education before 1954 was segregated; it was legally part of the Anderson County system but built and operated primarily with federal funds. Black children could attend only the Scarboro Elementary School. Oak Ridge High School was closed to black students, who had to be bused to Knoxville for education. Starting in 1950, Scarboro High School was established at Scarboro Elementary School to offer classes for African-American students. In 1955, 85 young Black students from the Scarboro community were the first to enter all-white classes in Oak Ridge High School and Robertsville Junior High School (now Robertsville Middle School). In 2023, on the 68th anniversary, a Scarboro 85 Monument was erected in Oak Ridge.

Robertsville Junior High School, serving Oak Ridge's western half, was desegregated at the same time as the high school. Elementary schools in other parts of the city and Jefferson Junior High School, serving the city's eastern half, were desegregated slowly as African-American families moved into housing outside Gamble Valley. In 1967 Scarboro Elementary School was closed, and African-American students from Gamble Valley were bused to other schools around the city.

The nearby high school in Clinton was desegregated in 1956. On October 5, 1958, the school was severely damaged after a series of dynamite explosions. An estimated 75 to 100 sticks of dynamite had been placed in three locations in the building. No one was injured, but the school closed while it was rebuilt. Oak Ridge provided space at a recently vacated elementary school building (the original Linden Elementary School) for the education of high school students from Clinton for two years while Clinton High School was rebuilt.

After the Brown decision, public accommodations in Oak Ridge were integrated over several years. In 1955, the spring-fed Oak Ridge Municipal Outdoor Swimming Pool, which had been completed in 1945, became integrated. In the early 1960s, Oak Ridge briefly experienced protest picketing against racial segregation in public accommodations, notably outside a local cafeteria and a laundromat.

Since World War II

Two years after World War II ended, Oak Ridge was shifted to civilian control, under the authority of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. The Roane Anderson Company administered community functions, including arranging housing and operating buses, under a government contract. In 1959 the town was incorporated. The community adopted a city manager and City Council form of government rather than direct federal control.

The S-50 liquid thermal diffusion plant was demolished soon after the war. The K-25 building, where uranium was enriched by the gaseous diffusion process until 1985 as the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant (ORGDP), was demolished in 2013–15 under Superfund as well as the other nearby production and support facilities in the years after. Much of the land associated with the former ORGDP has been transferred or leased for private and federal industrial reuse or dedicated as a National Historic Park.

Two of the four major plants created for the wartime bomb production remain in use today:

Y-12, originally used for electromagnetic separation of uranium, is now used for nuclear weapons processing and materials storage and known as the Y-12 National Security Complex. Y-12 is managed by the National Nuclear Security Administration.
X-10, site of a graphite test reactor, is now Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The Department of Energy (DOE) runs ORNL, a nuclear and high-tech research establishment.

In 1983, the DOE declassified a report showing that significant amounts of mercury had been released from the Oak Ridge Reservation into the East Fork Poplar Creek between 1950 and 1977. Circa 1989, a federal court ordered the DOE to bring the Oak Ridge Reservation into compliance with federal and state environmental regulations, such as RCRA. In addition, the Oak Ridge Reservation was put on the Environmental Protection Agency's National Priorities List as a Superfund site.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the largest multipurpose lab in the DOE's National Laboratory system. It is home to the Spallation Neutron Source, a $1.4 billion project completed in 2006, and "Titan", one of the world's most powerful scientific supercomputers, which has peak performance of more than one quadrillion operations per second. In 2018, IBM and ORNL unveiled Summit, the "world's fastest supercomputer", claimed to be more than twice as powerful as the previous world leader, with a peak performance of 200,000 trillion calculations per second.

The Y-12 National Security Complex is a component of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. The DOE's Environmental Management office is conducting an extensive program of decontamination and decommissioning, environmental cleanup, and waste management to remove or stabilize the hazardous residue remaining from decades of government production and research activities.

Oak Ridge's scientific heritage is curated in the American Museum of Science and Energy. Its role in the Manhattan Project is preserved in the Manhattan Project National Historical Park (along with sites in Hanford, Washington, and Los Alamos, New Mexico), run cooperatively by the National Park Service and the Department of Energy. A bus tour and several virtual tours are available for the public.

Geography

upright=1.25|thumb|View from the Oak Ridge Summit, a barren knob on the north slope of Pine Ridge; East Fork Ridge is on the left, Blackoak Ridge spans the horizon.

Immediately northeast of Oak Ridge, the southwestward-flowing Clinch River bends sharply to the southeast for roughly toward Solway, where it turns again to the southwest. After flowing for approximately , the river bends sharply to the northwest at Copper Ridge, and continues in this direction for nearly . At the K-25 plant, the Clinch turns southwest again and flows for another to its mouth along the Tennessee River at Kingston. This series of bends creates a half-rectangle formation—surrounded by water on the northeast, east, and southwest—in which Oak Ridge is situated.

The Oak Ridge area is striated by five ridges that run roughly parallel to one another in a northeast-to-southwest direction. In order from west to east, they are Blackoak Ridge (which connects the Elza and K-25 bends of the Clinch and thus "walls off" the half-rectangle), East Fork Ridge, Pine Ridge, Chestnut Ridge, and Haw Ridge. The five ridges are divided by four valleys: East Fork Valley (between Blackoak Ridge and East Fork Ridge), Gamble Valley (between East Fork Ridge and Pine Ridge), Bear Creek Valley (between Pine Ridge and Chestnut Ridge), and Bethel Valley (between Chestnut and Haw). These ridges and valleys are part of the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians physiographic province. The city's main section is in the northeast, where East Fork and Pine Ridge give way to low, scattered hills. Many of the city's residences are along Blackoak Ridge's relatively steep northeastern slope.

The completion of Melton Hill Dam (along the Clinch near Copper Ridge) in 1963 created Melton Hill Lake, which borders the city on the northeast and east. The lakefront on the east side of the city is a popular recreation area, with bicycling trails and picnic areas lining the shore. The lake is well known as a venue for rowing competitions. Watts Bar Lake, an impoundment of the Tennessee River that covers the lower of the Clinch, borders Oak Ridge to the south and southwest.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of , of which is land and , or 5.25%, is water. The highest point is Melton Hill () on the DOE reservation, at .

Climate

Like much of the rest of the state, Oak Ridge has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa in the Köppen climate classification); it is part of USDA hardiness zone 7a. The normal monthly mean temperature ranges from in January to in July, while on average there are 4.3 days where the temperature stays at or below freezing and 39 days with a high at or above per year.

Demographics

2020 census

As of the 2020 census, Oak Ridge had a population of 31,402, 13,363 households, and 8,241 families. The population density was 368.4 per square mile (142.2/km).

92.6% of residents lived in urban areas, while 7.4% lived in rural areas.

There were 13,363 households in Oak Ridge, of which 27.5% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 43.3% were married-couple households, 19.6% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 30.7% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 32.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

! Race !! Number !! Percent

| White || 24,679 || 78.6%

| Black or African American || 2,353 || 7.5%

| American Indian and Alaska Native || 136 || 0.4%

| Asian || 822 || 2.6%

| Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander || 47 || 0.1%

| Some other race || 842 || 2.7%

| Two or more races || 2,523 || 8.0%

| Hispanic or Latino (of any race) || 1,933 || 6.2%

The proportion of residents with a bachelor's degree or higher was estimated at 23.8%.

According to the 2016-2020 five-year American Community Survey estimates, the median household income was $55,869 (with a margin of error of +/- $3,567). The median family income was $67,282 (+/- $4,238). Men had a median income of $41,848 (+/- $4,832) versus $29,292 (+/- $3,190) for women. The median income for those above 16 years old was $34,291 (+/- $1,809). About 12.2% of families and 15.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 21.2% of those under the age of 18 and 7.8% of those ages 65 or over.

2010 census

As of the 2010 United States census, The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, operated by Oak Ridge Associated Universities, conducts research and education programs for the DOE, Department of Homeland Security, and other federal agencies. The Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division (ATDD), one of several field divisions of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Air Resources Laboratory, is also in the city. ATDD began under AEC sponsorship in 1948 as a Weather Bureau research office providing meteorological information and expertise for the AEC. Its main function now is to perform air quality-related research for issues of national and global importance.

The nuclear industry has continued to grow in Oak Ridge since the K-25 site was demolished. To date, more than 1,700 acres of the Oak Ridge Reservation have been transferred to the community that now house other nuclear companies, including Triso-X (nuclear fuel production), Kairos Power (small modular reactor project), and Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation. In September 2024, Orano USA selected Oak Ridge as the future site of a new multi-billion-dollar uranium enrichment facility.

Boeing operated a manufacturing plant in the city beginning in the early 1980s. It closed in 2007. IPIX, Remotec (now a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman), ZYP Coatings, ORTEC (now a subsidiary of AMETEK), Nuclear Lead, Vol Case & Container, American Magnetics, RbM Services, Vacuum Technology, and several other technology-based companies were founded in Oak Ridge, including Greg LeMond's carbon fiber-manufacturing business, LeMond Composites. Several radioactive waste processing companies, including EnergySolutions, have operations in Oak Ridge.

The infrastructure that was new in the 1940s is aging. The once isolated city is now incorporated into the Knoxville metropolitan area. Oak Ridge is now challenged to blend into Knoxville's suburban orbit as its heritage as a "super secret" government installation subsides. Changing economic forces have led to continuing changes in the commercial sector. For example, the Oak Ridge City Center, a shopping center built in the 1950s and converted to an indoor shopping mall in the 1980s, sat largely empty in the years leading to its eventual partial demolition and redevelopment.

In 2003, Oak Ridge extended its borders west beyond the Clinch River boundary to annex the master planned community the Preserve at Oak Ridge. In 2020, the Oak Ridge City Council approved the "Wilson Street Corridor" project plan, intended to develop and construct a downtown area along Wilson Street. The plan consists of a mixed-use development of retail, residential usage, and restaurants, with a primary focus on multi-story residential space.

Arts and culture

Points of interest include:

Alexander Inn (retirement home)
American Museum of Science and Energy
Children's Museum of Oak Ridge
East Tennessee Technology Park
Manhattan Project National Historical Park, National Park Service and Department of Energy site
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
United Church, The Chapel on the Hill
University of Tennessee Arboretum
Y-12 National Security Complex

Sports

Oak Ridge has a rowing venue on the Melton Hill Lake that hosts U.S. Rowing events such as the US Rowing Youth Summer National Championship. Oak Ridge has hosted cycling events for USA Cycling, including the USA Cycling Individual Time Trial National Championships.

A Minor League Baseball team called the Oak Ridge Pioneers played at the city's Ridgeview Park for one season in 1954. The Oak Ridge Bombers played briefly in 1948 before relocating.

Government

Oak Ridge uses the council-manager government system, which was established in 1959 when the city was incorporated. It is governed by a seven-member city council composed of the mayor and six council members.

Oak Ridge is represented in the Tennessee House of Representatives in the 33rd District in Anderson County, and the 32nd district in Roane County, by Representatives John Ragan and Kent Calfee respectively, both of whom are Republican. In the Tennessee Senate, Oak Ridge is represented in the 5th district in Anderson County and the 12th district in Roane County, by Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee and Senator Randy McNally, and Senator Ken Yager respectively, both of whom are Republican. Oak Ridge is represented in the United States House of Representatives by Republican Chuck Fleischmann of the 3rd congressional district.

Political makeup

Oak Ridge generally tilts Republican in statewide elections but can be competitive. The portion of the city in Roane County is more Republican and the portion in Anderson County is the most competitive.

{| class="wikitable" style="float:center; margin:1em; font-size:95%;"

|+Oak Ridge Presidential election results Independent schools in the city include the Montessori School of Oak Ridge, St. Mary's School, and several preschools. The Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning offers a diverse array of educational opportunities for adults.

Roane State Community College has its largest branch campus in Oak Ridge. Other higher education organizations present in the community but not offering classes locally include the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, and the University of Tennessee Forestry Stations and Arboretum.

Media

Oak Ridge is served by a daily newspaper, The Oak Ridger, and was for many years the home of AM radio station WATO.

Notable people

Notable persons who were born or lived in Oak Ridge:

Arnold Anderson, chemical engineer on Manhattan Project, consultant for American Indian Policy Review Commission and founder of American Indian Science and Engineering Society
E. Riley Anderson, Tennessee Supreme Court justice
Jennifer Azzi, WNBA player, coach, and Olympic gold medalist
General B.B. Bell, retired general, commander of U.S. Forces Korea and previously of U.S. Army, Europe and NATO's Joint Command
Manson Benedict, nuclear engineering pioneer
A. Keith Bissell, member of Tennessee House of Representatives and chairman of Tennessee Public Service Commission
Jane Blankenship, spectroscopist
Mike Caldwell, NFL player and coach
Nikki Caldwell Fargas, president of the Las Vegas Aces of the WNBA and previously women's basketball head coach for LSU
Paulo Campos, Filipino physician and educator noted for his promotion of wider community health care and his achievements in the field of nuclear medicine, for which he was dubbed as "The Father of Nuclear Medicine in the Philippines", became the first president of the National Academy of Science and Technology, and was conferred the rank and title of National Scientist of the Philippines
Kenneth Lee Carder, United Methodist Church bishop
Lee Clayton, country-rock singer/songwriter, composer of "Ladies Love Outlaws"
Waldo Cohn, biochemist known principally for developing techniques for separation of isotopes necessary for the Manhattan Project
Charles Counts, artist, potter, and author
Trae Crowder, comedian and author
Sheldon Datz, chemist
Dean Dillon, songwriter in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Charlie Ergen, co-founder and CEO of EchoStar Communications Corporation, parent company of Dish Network
Megan Fox, actress
Matthew Friedman, film editor
Jeannine Hall Gailey, author
John H. (Jack) Gibbons, director of Office of Technology Assessment and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Eugene Guth, physicist
Elaine Hendrix, actress
Tee Higgins, NFL player
Alexander Hollaender, one of the world's leading researchers in radiation biology and in genetic mutations and 1983 recipient of the Enrico Fermi Award
Otis Howard, NBA player
Alston Scott Householder, mathematician who invented Householder transformation
Mary Gaulden Jagger, radiation geneticist, professor of radiology, and political activist who authored some 60 scientific publications and helped lead the desegregation movement in Anderson County
Kathy Johnson, gymnast
Gene Kimmelman, consumer advocate and attorney
Kai-Fu Lee, Google executive
Doug Martin, football coach
Thomas Mason, physicist and director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 2007 to 2017
Matt McMahon, basketball head coach
Randy McNally, Tennessee Lieutenant Governor
John O. Merrill, architect
Edgar Meyer, Grammy Award-winning bassist
Sarah Monette, author
Karl Z. Morgan, health physics pioneer, leader of the "Gang of Six" health physicists at the Oak Ridge site of the Manhattan Project and founding Director of the Health Physics Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Clarice Phelps, nuclear chemist
Ward Plummer, physicist
William G. Pollard, nuclear physicist, author, and Episcopal priest, first director of Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies (now Oak Ridge Associated Universities)
Herman Postma, physicist and former director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Ellen Reid, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer
Bobby Richards, NFL player
Mitch Rouse, actor, director, and screenwriter
Danny Sanders, football player
Sophia Schubert, golfer
Cameron Sexton, Tennessee state representative and Speaker of the State House
William Shepherd, astronaut, commander of Expedition 1, first crew on International Space Station
Clifford Shull, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
Louis Slotin, physicist and chemist
Gore Verbinski, film director of Pirates of the Caribbean series
Muse Watson, American actor, lived with his sister in Oak Ridge for seven years after college
Alvin Weinberg, nuclear physicist, Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1955-1974, and author of numerous publications, including books on reactor safety and public policy related to nuclear energy
Ed Westcott, only authorized photographer in Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project
Richard White, actor
Eugene Wigner, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, founding Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and advocate for and author about civil defense from nuclear war
Adam Wingard, director
Herbert York, nuclear physicist

The Oak Ridge Boys took their name from their frequent performances at Oak Ridge National Laboratory during their earliest incarnation under Wally Fowler.

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Rick Jacobs, former assistant to Armand Hammer, President and Chief Executive Officer of Newstar, chairman and cofounder of Brave New Films, founder of the Courage Campaign, and Huffington Post blogger
Philip M. Jardine, Soil Scientist, won 10 Outstanding Young Americans on January 17, 1998

David Wilson

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Sister cities

Naka, Japan
Obninsk, Russia

Notes

References

External links

Convention and Visitors Bureau
Historic photos of Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project