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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Leon Overstreet

Construction WorkerHanford, WA

Manhattan Project VeteranProject Worker/Staff
Hanford Listen to Leon Overstreet’s Oral History on Voices of the Manhattan Project

Oklahoma-born Leon Overstreet went into construction in 1941 after he learned a little pipefitting with American Can in Kansas City. He retired in 1979 after helping build the Fast Flux Test Facility and Washington Public Power Supply System No. 2, both at Hanford. During the interview at his Richland residence, he was especially amused by his recollection of an outhouse scrawl he read at Hanford in 1944. “Come on you Okies/Let’s take japan/We took California/And never lost a man.”

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