Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Wilber A. Stevens was an army officer in charge of overseeing construction at Los Alamos. He helped choose the site where the Manhattan Project would test its first atomic bomb.

According to Robert W. Henderson, head of the Engineering Group in the Explosives Division, Stevens coined the name Trinity when the two were discussing the best way to transport the Jumbo device from the railroad. “A devout Roman Catholic, Stevens observed that the railroad siding was called ‘Pope’s Siding.’ He [then] remarked that the Pope had special access to the Trinity, and that the scientists would need all the help they could get to move the 214 ton Jumbo to its proper spot.”

Related Profiles

Dean Castimore

Los Alamos, NM

Dean Castimore was a Manhattan Project veteran and a fireman. During the war he was stationed at Los Alamos.

Franklin Matthias

Hanford, WA

Colonel Franklin Matthias (1908 – 1993) was the officer-in-charge at the Hanford site. Matthias, a civil engineer, had been a close associate of General Groves since the beginning of the Manhattan Project, and was asked to review sites in the West.

Vincent Lonnquist

Tinian Island

Vincent Lonnquist served in the 1st Ordnance Squadron.

W. G. Barnett

Hanford, WA