Oppenheimer’s Secret City Shot Up From Nowhere During WWII — And It Had A Dark Purpose

When America officially entered World War II on December 8, 1941 — the day after Pearl Harbor — the public had never heard of either Oppenheimer or Oak Ridge. In fact, Life magazine described the Oak Ridge of 1941 as "just one more pine and oak-stippled rise among the sleepy hills near Knoxville." But General Leslie Groves felt that Oak Ridge was the perfect place for his secret project.

The general had considered other locations for this mammoth undertaking. There were other options in East Tennessee as well as the Shasta Dam in California, two places near Chicago, and a few around Washington state. But it was only Oak Ridge that met Groves' specific demands — and time was of the essence now that the U.S. had suffered an attack on home ground.

In the days following the Battle of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. formally entered World War II. Its citizens were expected to support the nation in its mission, too, meaning life would change dramatically for the average American. Some of these advancements turned out to be more significant than others, though. For one thing, America’s need for weapons increased, and armament factories obviously needed workers.

But with many men joining the military, the duty of making war-related materials largely fell to women. Communities rallied together, collecting scrap metal to help with the war effort, and families had to make do with rations for their clothes, gas, and meals. So-called “victory gardens” sprang up in a bid to feed the nation with home-grown vegetables. Yet arguably nowhere in the U.S. changed quite as much during World War II as Oak Ridge, TN.

Away from the public's view, Groves chose Oppenheimer to oversee his new project. Oppenheimer was not the obvious choice — there were Nobel Prize-winning scientists with greater prestige ahead of him — but Groves felt the theoretical physicist was the man for the job. And together, Groves and Oppenheimer felt they needed a central, under-the-radar research laboratory for the sake of security and efficiency.

Oak Ridge wasn't completely deserted when Groves and Oppenheimer first laid eyes on it. People had originally begun to settle in Oak Ridge — which lies less than 30 miles west of Knoxville — in the late 1700s. And as the 19th century progressed, multiple farms sprang up around the rural region. At around the turn of the 20th century, the area was also home to a fascinating individual named John Hendrix.

An eccentric character, Hendrix suffered a tragedy and later apparently began to hear voices in his head. The voices allegedly told him to pray in the woods for 40 days and nights — and then Hendrix claimed to see visions. His most famous prophecy — according to local legend — involved Oak Ridge and was spookily close to what would actually become of the place during World War II.

According to local history, Hendrix once forewarned, “Bear Creek Valley someday will be filled with great buildings and factories, and they will help toward winning the greatest war that ever will be… Big engines will dig big ditches, and thousands of people will be running to and fro. They will be building things, and there will be great noise and confusion, and the earth will shake.”

Then, around 40 years after Hendrix’s cryptic prediction, the transformation of what would become Oak Ridge began. In November 1942, long after Hendrix himself had passed, his son Curtis Allen Hendrix received a letter from the U.S. War Department. And the contents of the note probably came as a surprise. It read, “The War Department intends to take possession of your farm Dec. 1, 1942... Your fullest cooperation will be a material aid to the War Effort.”

The note arrived on November 11, 1942, so Hendrix had little under a month to get his affairs in order. There was to be no negotiating with the government, and the farmer would receive $850 in exchange for his 60 acres of land. But the precise intended use of his land would remain a mystery. And Hendrix was far from the only local resident to receive this mysterious offer.

Hendrix was in fact one of 3,000 Oak Ridge locals to have received what were essentially unexplained eviction orders. Many families returned to their homes to find notices pinned to their doors. And to make matters worse, some residents had just two weeks in which to leave the homes that had presumably been in their families for generations. They were understandably not very pleased.

However, the locals’ protests mostly fell on deaf ears. Life reported an incident of a local woman getting assurance from a town official that builders would not be putting down a road in front of her house. But in the afternoon, she phoned them, "That road you weren't going to build — well, they're driving on it now." And still, nobody knew the reason for the speedy departures.

The residents certainly didn't know that the government had handpicked the Tennessee location as one of the sites on which to carry out a top-secret mission. The place was ideal for Groves and Oppenheimer's project, as it was both affordable and easily accessible. The recent construction of the nearby Norris Dam meant that water and electricity supplies were reliable, too. Plus, the area was contained by several natural ridges, which provided Oak Ridge with invaluable protection.

The authorities spent an estimated $2.6 million acquiring land in the area. And in March 1943, construction of a new settlement was already underway. Officials built the city from the ground up, putting down hundreds of miles of road and creating 44,000 structures in which to house workers. By the end of construction, there were ten schools, a hospital, 13 supermarkets, 17 eateries, and seven theaters.

And all the while the government started to fill their brand-new city with residents. It employed steel workers from Pennsylvania and carpenters and machinists from Michigan. Riveters, stenographers, and scientists from all over the country began arriving in Oak Ridge, too. The first family moved in on July 3, 1943, and by the end of the project, Oak Ridge was filled with 75,000 people.

In 1943 the secret settlement became formally known as Oak Ridge. The name — which was inspired by the city’s position on Black Oak Ridge — had been suggested by the local workers. Officials also felt that the anonymous-sounding name gave off a rural feel that would keep “outside curiosity to a minimum,” according to a United States Engineering Department publication from 1946.

But while Oak Ridge ultimately became home to thousands of workers, the fruits of their labor had to be shrouded in secrecy. As a result, those employees needed to be trustworthy; one security procedure even required some potential residents to undergo lie detector tests. Life magazine reported that anybody who revealed what they were up to could have been subject to ten years in prison or a $10,000 fine.

People did talk to one another, of course, but nobody — aside from Oppenheimer and the like — had any indication of the big picture. In one building, women operated complicated machinery that produced a mysterious substance. Scientists located elsewhere conducted revolutionary experiments in their labs. And while these people labored, the military circled Oak Ridge — a city entirely surrounded by a fence and guarded by armed officers.

The official line was, "We're making the fronts of horses. We ship them to Washington, D.C., for final assembly." But Oak Ridge’s swift development into a bustling city reportedly left some nearby residents feeling uncomfortable. The heavy – and not particularly subtle – military presence in the area hardly helped matters, either. But for those who called the secret city home, life there was surprisingly ordinary.

Inside its gates, Oak Ridge had the appearance of a regular American town. In addition to building schools, stores, theaters, and restaurants, residents also kept entertained by creating sports facilities for every kind of sport, a library, a singing society, and a symphony. People from as many as 17 religious denominations would be able to find a service to suit their faith, too.

In scenes most likely replicated the country over, children played and teenagers socialized in Oak Ridge. All the while, their parents worked hard towards the war effort, although they were ignorant about the precise nature of their involvement. The only real clue to Oak Ridge’s intended purpose was the large billboards that loomed over the city and warned residents to keep quiet about their endeavors.

To the outside world, though, Oak Ridge was different. For one thing — and unlike other places in the country — the location didn’t appear on any maps. As a result, most of America was completely oblivious to its existence. And anyone who did visit the site could only get inside after an Oak Ridge resident had secured them a pass. ID badges had to be worn all the time, and anybody coming in and out was thoroughly searched and sworn to secrecy.

But regardless, within just two short years of its establishment, Oak Ridge had grown into Tennessee’s fifth-biggest city. Yet the people in this community didn't even know about the existence of other, similar facilities around the United States. There was a 430,000-acre area in Washington State called Hanford that had a population of 17,000 workers who were also in the dark about the purpose of their jobs. Then there was the massive laboratory in New Mexico.

Yet residents wouldn’t discover exactly what the results of their efforts had been until August 6, 1945. And when the news broke, the people who lived in Oak Ridge and Hanford were just as shocked as everybody else to discover what they'd been doing. The newspapers that informed the world about the Manhattan Project sold for $1 a piece in Oak Ridge. This is the equivalent of $16 today — and nobody quibbled with the price.

Unbeknownst to almost anyone outside the highest echelons of the U.S. government, the Manhattan Project became active in 1942. Although the seeds of the project were sown in 1939 when it was discovered that scientists in Nazi Germany had been developing a potentially devastating nuclear weapon. Naturally, the American government decided that they too needed such a resource and even Albert Einstein suggested to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that it would be a good idea to start researching it.

So, in order for the U.S. to get ahead of the Germans, President Roosevelt established the Advisory Committee on Uranium. Principally, the group’s role was to research how uranium could be used as a means to harness the power of nuclear reactions. And the committee ultimately discovered that blasts from nuclear weapons released energy of the equivalent of around 20,000 tons of explosives. In July 1942 Oppenheimer started to debate the design of a fission bomb. 

American design and development of such weapons first began in 1943 in New Mexico’s Los Alamos Laboratory. That facility was headed by Oppenheimer — a theoretical physicist who was later dubbed the “father of the atomic bomb” for his work on the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer was appointed to that position in October 1942. He signed off on Los Alamos as a dedicated site in November.

The official name of the project was initially the Development of Substitute Materials. Specifically, Oppenheimer and his team would develop two kinds of bombs from their lab in Los Alamos. The first device, which used uranium, was known as the “Little Boy”; a second, plutonium-based device, by contrast, was dubbed the “Fat Man.” And the work that was undertaken at Oak Ridge was crucial to both of these advancements.

Various plants in Oak Ridge took natural uranium and removed uranium-235 from it. And that particular fissile isotope fuels nuclear explosives — not that the Oak Ridge operatives of the machines that produced the material were aware of its power. Even so, the ramifications of the citizens’ work were about to become all too clear. And not everybody who lived in Oak Ridge would be happy to see how their labor paid off.

In the summer of 1945, Germany was nearing surrender. Their Japanese allies showed no signs of backing out of the war, however, leading to the U.S. giving the nation an ultimatum in the form of the Potsdam Declaration. This statement warned Japan that it must be free "for all time of the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest..." Or else face “prompt and utter destruction.”

The declaration warned, "We will not deviate from [the terms]. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay." Yet Japan’s emperor refused to accept the terms outlined by the U.S. That's why the American military decided that the time had come to put its atomic bombs to use. The Americans chose the city of Hiroshima as the intended target, owing to its dimensions and the fact that it was free of U.S. prisoners of war.

With Japan’s surrender still not forthcoming, the “Little Boy” bomb developed by Oppenheimer and his Manhattan Project was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The bomb was carried by a Boeing B-29 Superfortress called the Enola Gay. The blast that resulted caused destruction on a level that had never been seen before. Around 70 percent of the city’s structures were obliterated, and an estimated 70,000 people lost their lives.

This demonstration of America’s new technology would, it was hoped, provoke a Japanese surrender. But when no such submission came, the U.S. dropped a second bomb — this time a “Fat Boy” — on the city of Nagasaki. This explosive targeted a factory that had been building torpedoes, but it ultimately destroyed the northern part of Nagasaki — killing 35,000 people in the process. This bomb was dropped on August 9, 1945.

Then, the day after the attack on Nagasaki — with over 100,000 people dead as a result of the two bombings — Japan finally announced its intention to leave the conflict. August 14, 1945, is the day that the country officially surrendered, and with this act, the war in Asia drew to a close — as did World War II itself. Oppenheimer later told the president, "I feel I have blood on my hands."

But while many people celebrated the end of the conflict, some who’d worked on the Manhattan Project had mixed feelings regarding the ultimate use of the products that they had helped to create. Mary Michel was one such individual. Michel later revealed her reaction to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when speaking to the Atomic Heritage Foundation. Michel had worked at Oak Ridge’s K-25 plant as a teletype operator during the time of the Manhattan Project.

A newspaper at the time read, “Oak Ridge Attacks Japanese... Workers thrill as atomic bomb secret breaks.” But in an interview posted to the Atomic Heritage Foundation’s YouTube channel in 2015, she revealed, “As far as the war effort was concerned, we were vaguely aware of it. And I knew what I was doing in the lab where I worked, but I didn’t know the big picture. I didn’t know how that would fit into the bomb.”

Michel added, “The night that the news broke that the bombs had been dropped, there was joyous occasions in the streets — hugging and kissing and dancing and live music and singing that went on for hours and hours. But it bothered me to know that I, in my very small way, had participated in such a thing. I sat in my dorm room and cried.”

The Manhattan Project and its aftermath led to the coming of the so-called “Atomic Age.” Following the war, other world powers began to develop their own nuclear weapons —each one more powerful than the last and capable of threatening all life on Earth. But on October 16, 1945 — just two months after the first atomic bomb was dropped — Oppenheimer resigned from the Los Alamos lab.

In 1965 Oppenheimer spoke of his state of mind when the bomb was dropped. "We knew the world would not be the same," he said. "A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another."