Oak Ridge History Museum

The Clinton Engineer Works (CEW) was the production installation of the Manhattan Project that during World War II produced the enriched uranium used in the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, as well as the first examples of reactor-produced plutonium. It consisted of production facilities arranged at three major sites, various utilities including a power plant, and the town of Oak Ridge. It was in East Tennessee, about 18 miles (29 km) west of Knoxville, and was named after the town of Clinton, eight miles (13 km) to the north. The production facilities were mainly in Roane County, and the northern part of the site was in Anderson County. The Manhattan District Engineer, Kenneth Nichols, moved the Manhattan District headquarters from Manhattan to Oak Ridge in August 1943. During the war, Clinton's advanced research was managed for the government by the University of Chicago. Construction workers were housed in a community known as Happy Valley. Built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1943, this temporary community housed 15,000 people. The township of Oak Ridge was established to house the production staff. The operating force peaked at 50,000 workers just after the end of the war. The construction labor force peaked at 75,000 and the combined employment peak was 80,000. The town was developed by the federal government as a segregated community; black residents lived only in an area known as Gamble Valley, in government-built "hutments" (one-room shacks) on the south side of what is now Tuskegee Drive.

Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about 25 miles (40 km) west of downtown Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 31,402 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. Oak Ridge's nicknames include the Atomic City, the Secret City, the Ridge, the Town the Atomic Bomb Built, and the City Behind the Fence.In 1942, the United States federal government purchased nearly 60,000 acres (240 km2) of farmland in the Clinch River Valley for the development of a planned city supporting 75,000 residents. It was constructed with assistance from architectural and engineering firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, from 1942 to 1943. Oak Ridge was established in 1942 as a production site for the Manhattan Project—the massive American, British, and Canadian operation that developed the atomic bomb. Being the site of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex, scientific and technological development still plays a crucial role in the city's economy and culture in general.

Oak Ridge High School is the public high school for Oak Ridge, Tennessee, enrolling grades 9 through 12. It was established in 1943 to educate the children of Manhattan Project workers.

Robertsville was a farming community in Anderson County, Tennessee, that was disbanded in 1942 when the area was acquired for the Manhattan Project. Its site is now part of the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Robertsville was established in 1804 by a merchant named Collins Roberts, who received a 4,000-acre (16 km2) land grant. The community was located on the Old Emory Coach Road, and a natural spring in Robertsville called Cross Spring was a rest stop where travelers on that road could water and rest their horses. During the 19th century, Robertsville was also the site of a slave block. During the Civil War, however, community residents generally supported the Union cause.Notable residents included Swiss-German immigrant Henry Sienknecht, a Confederate Army physician who practiced medicine in Robertsville for several decades after the Civil War, before moving in 1890 to Oliver Springs, where he operated a store.The community continued to exist until 1942, when the United States government acquired the land as a part of the Manhattan Project. The residents of Robertsville were displaced, along with the residents of several other communities. Robertsville is now in the residential and commercial portion of the city of Oak Ridge. The present Robertsville Middle School is located on the site of the old Robertsville High School, which was built in about 1915. The high school gymnasium was retained to become the middle school's gym. Collins Roberts is buried in the Robertsville Baptist Cemetery. In the 1930s Cross Spring was dammed by a local farmer to form a small lake that the Army Corps of Engineers lined with concrete during World War II to convert it to a large swimming pool. The site of the lake is still the location of Oak Ridge's unusually large outdoor municipal swimming pool.

Main Street Oak Ridge, formerly known as Oak Ridge City Center and Oak Ridge Mall, is a mixed-use development in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It was formerly constructed as a large indoor shopping mall.

The Children's Museum of Oak Ridge (abbreviated as CMOR) is a non-profit children's museum in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States, that provides museum exhibits and educational programs.

The American Museum of Science and Energy (AMSE) is a science museum in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, designed to teach children and adults about energy, especially nuclear power, and to document the role Oak Ridge played in the Manhattan Project. The museum opened as the American Museum of Atomic Energy in 1949 in an old World War II cafeteria on Jefferson Circle. It moved to its second facility in 1975 and was renamed AMSE in 1978. As of June 2019, the museum is located in the shopping mall across the street from the old location.

Oak Ridge Historic District (also known as Clinton Engineer Works Townsite) is a historic district in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Roughly bounded by East Drive, Outer and West Outer Drives, Louisiana Avenue, and Tennessee Avenue, the district comprises much of Oak Ridge's original Manhattan Project townsite, laid out by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Contributing properties in the historic district include United Church, The Chapel on the Hill, the Alexander Inn, and Highland View Elementary School, which houses the Children's Museum of Oak Ridge. The district was added to the National Register in 1991.

The Y-12 National Security Complex is a United States Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration facility located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It was built as part of the Manhattan Project for the purpose of enriching uranium for the first atomic bombs. It is considered the birthplace of the atomic bomb. In the years after World War II, it has been operated as a manufacturing facility for nuclear weapons components and related defense purposes. Y-12 is managed and operated under contract by Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC (CNS), which is composed of member companies Bechtel National Inc., Leidos Inc., Orbital ATK, Inc, and SOC LLC, with Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. as a teaming subcontractor. CNS also operates Pantex Plant in Texas.

The Alexander Inn, originally known as The Guest House, is a historic building in Oak Ridge, Tennessee that was built during the Manhattan Project to house official visitors and that later was used as a hotel. It is included on the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing property in a historic district.

The United Church, Chapel on the Hill in Oak Ridge, Tennessee was the city's main church during World War II. Dedicated on September 30, 1943, and completed late in October 1943, it was originally a multi-denominational chapel shared by Catholic, Protestant and Jewish congregations.

The University of Tennessee Arboretum (250 acres) is a research and educational arboretum operated by the University of Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station. It is located at 901 South Illinois Avenue (State Highway 62), Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It is open to the public without charge. Outdoor areas are open daily from 8:00 a.m. until sunset; the office and visitor center are open weekdays during normal office hours. The arboretum contains approximately 2,500 native and exotic woody plant specimens, representing 800 species, varieties, and cultivars, with good collections of azaleas, conifers, crabapples, dogwoods, hollies, junipers, magnolias, oaks, rhododendrons, and viburnums. It also includes geographic groupings of plants from both relatively nearby habitats (Cumberland River gorge, Southern United States coastal plains) and elsewhere in the world (California, central China, and Poland), as well as four nature trails with interpretive signs.