KEY LOCATIONS
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Map of the key locations of the Manhattan Project. You can click on the red dots to find out what were those sites responsible for during the project's active years.
Original map provided by Wikipedia.org
OAK RIDGE
Groves and Colonel Marshall visited the potential site in Tennessee the next day after Groves took over the project, and Groves was impressed. On 29th of September, 1942, U.S. Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson gave the Corps of Engineers permission to seize 227 km² of land for $3.5 million by using eminent domain. Subsequently, additional 12 km² were bought. The condemnation order, which went into power on the 7th of October, had a significant impact on about 1,000 families. There was no success with protests, legal appeals, or a 1943 Congressional investigation. By mid-November U.S. Marshals were tacking notices to vacate on farmhouse doors, and construction contractors were moving in. Families who had lived on farms for many generations were given two weeks' notice to leave. By the end, only about $2.6 million was spent on land acquisition in the region, which wasn't fully finished until March 1945. Public Proclamation Number Two, which declared Oak Ridge a total exclusion zone that no one could enter without military authorization.
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The Clinton Engineer Works (CEW) was the new name given to the location in early 1943 after it had previously been called the Kingston Demolition Range. While Stone & Webster focused on the production facilities, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill developed and constructed a residential neighbourhood for around 13,000 people. The neighbourhood was situated on Black Oak Ridge's slopes, from whence the current town of Oak Ridge derived its name. When Nichols took over as manager of the Manhattan Engineer District in August 1943, he expanded the Army's presence in Oak Ridge. Although the district's name remained the same, one of his first jobs was to relocate its headquarters to Oak Ridge.
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The management of public facilities was transferred to Turner Construction Company in September of 1943 via a subsidiary known as the Roane-Anderson Company (after Roane and Anderson Counties, where Oak Ridge was situated). William J. Wilcox Jr. and Warren Fuchs, chemical engineers, were a part of "frantic efforts" to produce 10% to 12% enriched uranium 235, also known as "tuballoy tetroxide," with strict security and quick authorization for supplies and materials. Oak Ridge's population quickly grew much above the original expectations, reaching a peak of 75,000 in May of 1945, when 82,000 people were working at the Clinton Engineer Works and 10,000 at Roane-Anders.
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Mary Steers and Josephine Herrick, two fine-arts photographers, are responsible for capturing and documenting the activity in Oak Ridge in its active years.
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Jackson Square – Oak Ridge's original 'townsite'
Image provided by OakRidger.com
LOS ALAMOS
Project Y (the secret laboratory established to design the atomic bomb) was originally supposed to be located near Oak Ridge, but it was ultimately decided that it should be in a secluded area. The search for a suitable location was condensed on Oppenheimer's advice to the area around Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Oppenheimer owned a property. Major John H. Dudley of the Manhattan District was sent to conduct a survey of the region in October 1942. He suggested a location close to Jemez Springs, New Mexico. Oppenheimer, Groves, Dudley, and others visited the location on November 16. Oppenheimer was worried that his staff would feel claustrophobic because of the surrounding tall cliffs and hills, and the engineers were worried about possible flooding. The Los Alamos Ranch School area was the next stop for the group. It was hoped that the site's natural beauty and views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains would motivate people who would work on the project after Oppenheimer stated his admiration for it and his strong preference for it. The engineers thought it was great overall, but they were concerned about the inadequate access road and if the water supply would be sufficient.
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On the 25th of November, 1942, Patterson gave his approval for the purchase of the site, providing $440,000 for the purchase of the property's 219 km², of which the federal government already held all but 36 km². The War Department was given access to about 183 km² of US Forest Service land by Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard "for as long as the military necessity continues." The necessity for land, a new road, and later a right of way for a 40-km power line led to the purchase of 186 km² during the war, but only $414,971 was allocated for such purchases. The M. M. Sundt Company of Tucson, Arizona, was hired to do the construction, and Willard C. Kruger and Associates of Santa Fe, New Mexico, served as the architect and engineer. The work on the project began in December of 1942. With a target completion date of the 15th of March, 1943, Groves initially allotted $300,000 for construction, which was three times Oppenheimer's estimate. The scale of Project Y quickly exceeded expectations, and by the time Sundt finished on the 30th of November, 1943, more than $7 million had been already spent.
Los Alamos was referred to as "Site Y" or "the Hill" due of its top secrecy. Santa Fe's PO Box 1663 was listed as the birthplace on the birth certificates of infants born in Los Alamos during the war. Oppenheimer and other researchers were initially supposed to be appointed to the Army in order for Los Alamos to serve as a military research facility. Oppenheimer even ordered a lieutenant colonel's uniform for himself, but two important physicists, Robert Bacher and Isidor Rabi, objected to the idea. Conant, Groves, and Oppenheimer later came up with a compromise in which the War Department hired the University of California to run the laboratory.
Los Alamos, 1955
Image provided by Sah-archipedia.org
CHICAGO
On the 25th of June, 1942, an Army-OSRD council resolved to develop a pilot plant for producing plutonium in Red Gate Woods, southwest of Chicago. Captain James F. Grafton was hired as the Chicago area engineer in July after Nichols arranged for a lease of 4 km² from the Cook County Forest Preserve District. It was decided to establish the factory in Oak Ridge and keep a research and testing facility in Chicago because it quickly became evident that the scale of operations was too large for the location.
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Compton ended up giving the Metallurgical Laboratory permission to build the first nuclear reactor beneath the stands at Stagg Field at the University of Chicago as a result of delays in opening the plant in Red Gate Woods. A huge quantity of graphite blocks and uranium pellets were needed for the reactor, and there was a finite supply of pure uranium at the time. Only 1,814 kg of pure uranium were able to be produced by Frank Spedding of Iowa State University. Westinghouse Lamp Plant provided 2,720 more kg of uranium metal that had been created in a hurry using improvised methods. Goodyear Tire created a huge square balloon to house the reactor. Enrico Fermi's group started the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the Chicago
Pile-1 experimental reactor on the 2nd of December, 1942. Compton would report the success to Conant in Washington, D.C., by a coded phone call, saying, "The Italian navigator [Fermi] has just landed in the new world."
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The reactor's operation was deemed too risky for a densely populated region by Grafton's replacement, Major Arthur V. Peterson, in January of 1943, who ordered Chicago Pile-1 dismantled and reassembled at Red Gate Woods. On the15th of May, 1944, Chicago Pile-3, the site's first heavy water reactor, started operating. Approximately9.7 km away, at the new location of the Argonne National Laboratory, the operations that remained at Red Gate after the war were relocated.
Part of the Metallurgical Laboratory, Chicago
Image provided by Wikipedia.org
COMINCO
Since 1930, Cominco has been producing electrolytic hydrogen (hydrogen that was split from water using electricity) in Trail, British Columbia. In 1941, Urey hypothesized that it might also produce heavy water. Secondary electrolysis cells were added to the $10 million plant, which has 3,215 cells and uses 75 MW of hydroelectric power, to raise the deuterium concentration in the water from 2.3% to 99.8%. For the first three stages of this process, Hugh Taylor of Princeton created a platinum-on-carbon catalyst, and Urey created a nickel-chromia catalyst for the fourth stage tower. The whole price came to $2.8 million. The idea was not disclosed to the Canadian government until August 1942. Production of Trail's heavy water began in January 1944 and lasted until 1956. Chicago Pile 3, the first reactor to utilise heavy water and natural uranium, went into operation on the15th of May, 1944, using heavy water from Trail.
Chicago Pile 3
Image provided by Wikipedia.org
HANFORD
By December of 1942, there were worries that, in the unlikely event of a serious nuclear catastrophe, even Oak Ridge was too close to a significant population centre (Knoxville). Groves selected DuPont as the primary contractor for the development of the plutonium manufacturing complex in November 1942. A normal cost plus fixed-fee contract was presented to DuPont, but Walter S. Carpenter, Jr., the business president, insisted on no profit of any type and requested that the proposed contract be changed to expressly forbid the corporation from acquiring any intellectual rights. This was accepted, however a little price of $1 was decided upon for legal reasons. DuPont had to refund 33 cents after asking for an early release from the contract following the war.
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DuPont suggested that the location be situated distant from Oak Ridge's current uranium manufacturing facility. Groves sent Colonel Franklin Matthias and engineers from DuPont to examine prospective locations in December of 1942. Hanford Site, which is close to Richland, Washington, was described as "ideal in almost every respect" by Matthias. The Columbia River, which could provide enough water to cool the reactors that would create the plutonium, was close by and it was remote. In January, Groves paid a visit to the location and founded the Hanford Engineer Works (HEW), also known as "Site W".
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On the 9th of February, Under Secretary Patterson approved funding of $5 million for the purchase of 1740 km² of land in the region. The Wanapum and other local towns, together with around 1,500 residents of White Bluffs, Hanford, and other communities, were relocated by the federal government. Farmers and landowners got into a spat over who should pay for crops that were already grown before the land was purchased. The Army allowed the crops to be harvested when schedules permitted, although this wasn't always practicable. The process of acquiring property stretched on and was not finished when the Manhattan Project came to a conclusion in December 1946.
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Luckily, work was not delayed by the disagreement. In April of 1943, the building of facilities begun. They were built for estimated 25,000 workers, half of whom were intended to reside on-site, despite the fact that the Metallurgical Laboratory and DuPont's progress on the reactor design was not far enough along to accurately predict the magnitude of the project. By July of 1944, the construction camp housed roughly 51,000 workers and about 1,200 buildings had been constructed. Matthias was in charge of managing the entire site as the local engineer. The construction camp peaked as Washington State's third-most populated community. More buses were operated by Hanford than by the entire city of Chicago. Richland was a gated neighborhood with restricted access, similar to Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, but it had a more traditional American boomtown appearance due to the lower military profile and lack of obvious physical security measures like tall walls, towers, and guard dogs.
Construction at Hanford during the Manhattan Project
Image provided by Nps.gov
COMINCO
Since 1930, Cominco has been producing electrolytic hydrogen (hydrogen that was split from water using electricity) in Trail, British Columbia. In 1941, Urey hypothesized that it might also produce heavy water. Secondary electrolysis cells were added to the $10 million plant, which has 3,215 cells and uses 75 MW of hydroelectric power, to raise the deuterium concentration in the water from 2.3% to 99.8%. For the first three stages of this process, Hugh Taylor of Princeton created a platinum-on-carbon catalyst, and Urey created a nickel-chromia catalyst for the fourth stage tower. The whole price came to $2.8 million. The idea was not disclosed to the Canadian government until August 1942. Production of Trail's heavy water began in January 1944 and lasted until 1956. Chicago Pile 3, the first reactor to utilise heavy water and natural uranium, went into operation on the15th of May, 1944, using heavy water from Trail.
Chicago Pile 3
Image provided by Wikipedia.org
ONTARIO
In order to relocate the Allied effort at the Montreal Laboratory outside of an urban area, the Chalk River, Ontario, location was created. At Deep River, Ontario, a brand-new neighborhood was created to house and provide for the team's needs. The location was chosen due to its close proximity to Camp Petawawa, a sizable military base, and the industrial manufacturing areas of Ontario and Quebec. It had access to a lot of water because it was near the Ottawa River. Hans von Halban served as the new laboratory's first director. In May 1944, John Cockcroft took his place, and in September 1946, Bennett Lewis followed him. When a pilot reactor known as ZEEP (Zero-Energy Experimental Pile) reached criticality in September of 1945, it became the first Canadian reactor and the first to be finished outside of the United States. ZEEP was used by scientists up until 1970. During the war, a larger 10 MW NRX reactor was constructed; it was finished and started being operated in July 1947.
ZEEP in February 1954
Image provided by Cns-snc.ca
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
The Eldorado Mine at Port Radium was a source of uranium ore during the active years of the project.
The Eldorado Mine in the Northwest Territories
Image provided by Wikipedia.org
HEAVY WATER SITES
DuPont expressed interest in using heavy water as a backup in case the graphite reactor design proved to be unworkable for whatever reason, even though its preferred designs for nuclear reactors were helium-cooled and employed graphite as a moderator. It was calculated that 2,721 kg of heavy water would be needed for this purpose each month. The heavy water production initiative was known by the government as the P-9 Project. Additional capacity was needed because the facility at Trail, which was then under construction, could only produce 408 kg per month. Groves granted DuPont permission to build heavy water facilities at the Wabash River Ordnance Works, close to Dana and Newport in Indiana, the Morgantown Ordnance Works, close to Morgantown in West Virginia, and the Alabama Ordnance Works, close to Childersburg and Sylacauga in Alabama. Even though they were established and are run by the Army Corps of Engineers, they are known as Ordnance Works and are funded by contracts with the Ordnance Department. Unlike Trail, the American plants employed distillation to extract heavy water, taking advantage of the somewhat higher boiling point of heavy water.
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