News Archive

Plans for building the K-25 History Center are moving forward. In December 2013, the Department of Energy completed its demolition of the historic K-25 gaseous diffusion plant, once the largest roofed building in the world. In an August 2012 “memorandum of agreement” with preservationists and other parties, DOE promised to “mitigate” the demolition of the building […]

On July 13, the East Tennessee Preservation Alliance (ETPA), the Department of Energy (DOE) in Oak Ridge, and Dover Development received the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation Chairman’s Award for Achievement in Historic Preservation for their efforts to preserve and restore the historic Alexander Inn in Oak Ridge.  Built to accommodate visiting dignitaries during the […]

Artist Jim Sanborn spent ten years investigating the Manhattan Project and collecting artifacts from the Black Hole in Los Alamos and many other sources to create a magnificent exhibit called “Atomic Time.” The exhibition opened in 2003 in Washington, DC at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. As the catalogue noted, the exhibition is “pure science, […]

Good news from Oak Ridge: the Alexander Guest House has been restored to its former glory. During the Manhattan Project, leaders such as General Leslie R. Groves, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Secretary of War Henry Stimson stayed at the historic inn. After the war, it was a community landmark. But it hadn’t been used since […]

In December 2013, the Department of Energy completed its demolition of the historic K-25 gaseous diffusion plant, once the largest roofed building in the world. In an August 2012 “memorandum of agreement” with preservationists and other parties, DOE promised to “mitigate” the demolition of the building by creating a history center, building a viewing tower […]

In 1937, Westinghouse Company built an atom smasher on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, PA. The atom smasher stood 65 feet or five stories high. It was the first industrial particle accelerator ever built. According to Physics Central, “Its unusual bulb shape is because it is an old Van de Graaff style electrostatic accelerator. The steel dome […]

In 2012, Berkeley health physicist Phil Broughton stopped by the office of the Atomic Heritage Foundation and relayed some exciting news: he had discovered a tiny plutonium sample at Berkeley, which he believed to be one of Seaborg’s first samples. In 1942, Chicago chemists Burris Cunningham and Lewis Werner purified and extracted plutonium from uranium […]

On January 22, 2015, the Department of Energy-Oak Ridge hosted a meeting to review progress on implementing the commitments made in the 2012 Memorandum of Agreement to mitigate the demolition of the entire K-25 plant. Mayor Warren Gooch and City Manager Mark of Oak Ridge, Patrick McIntyre and Claudette Stager of the Tennessee Historical Commission, […]

This May, visitors will once again be welcome at the Guest House in Oak Ridge. During the Manhattan Project, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, General Leslie Groves and other notables stayed at the Guest House, renamed the Alexander Inn in 1950, when visiting the Clinton Engineer Works. Thanks to a $500,000 grant provided […]

We are pleased to announce that the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) has awarded the Atomic Heritage Foundation (AHF) two grants to expand our “Ranger in Your Pocket” series, which provides online tours of Manhattan Project sites around the country. These grants will allow AHF to develop online tours focusing on Los Alamos’s historic […]