In 1942, the US government acquired the town of Oak Ridge in
eastern Tennessee. From then on, Oak Ridge was just like any
other town — except for the fences, the guards, and the top-
secret uranium separating facility. As part of the Manhattan
Project, the United States Army Corps of Engineers acquired the
town, swiftly evicting the residents and erecting a fence around
the entire area. Once the entire population had been removed,
the Corps erected prefab houses, apartment buildings and
dormitories, as well as four major industrial plants, each with
a shared purpose: to separate the isotope uranium-235 from
natural uranium. By 1945, 75,000 people were living in Oak Ridge
in government-assigned housing. Houses were assigned based on
worker status and family size and, incidentally, the residential
areas were racially segregated. But Oak Ridge had all the
amenities the town of its size would: schools, movie theaters, a
symphony, a library, churches, supermarkets, the works. The U.S.
Department of Energy's Oak Rid