This Eastern TN town grew from 3,000 to over 75,000 in a three year period of time. It was a WWII’s “Secret City”, which was chosen in 1942 as the site for construction of the Manhattan Project, the government’s code name for the development of the Atomic Bomb. That project cost $1.65 billion and consumed 1/7 of ALL of the electricity in the USA. I was amazed with these and other facts as I toured the American Museum of Science & Energy in Oak Ridge, TN (population 27,387 today) this week.
Stats for Oak Ridge are generally very positive: 89.3% high school grads compared to 80.4% in the USA; 37.9% bachelor’s degree or higher vs. 24.4% in the USA; as are per capita and household income. The one warning signal for me: a medium age of 43.4 years compared to 35.3 years for the USA.
The city is still heavily dependent upon governmental projects. There are a large number of governmental contractors who have offices in the city.
The city celebrates their history this weekend with their Secret City Festival (www.secretcityfestival.com). I thought that it was interesting that one of the featured acts is Bill Haley’s Comets.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment