ORNL FCU 75 Years

At last, the secret was revealed. The world suddenly became aware of a completely new and largely unexpected technology, and the people of Oak Ridge finally learned what they had been working on. To their amazement they soon realized how their achievement hastened the fall of Japan to end World War II and helped to give birth to the Nuclear Age. Two years after the war ended in 1947, the facilities and communities of Oak Ridge were shifted to civilian control under the authority of the

DID YOU KNOW . . . The codename X-10 was the name of the site in Bethel Valley and was also attached to the graphite reactor. The site was later designated as Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which had recently been formed to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. Three of Oak Ridge’s four original facilities created for wartime bomb production remained: K-25, a gaseous diffusion plant that enriched uranium. X-10, site of the world’s first production-scale nuclear reactor that was used to prove plutonium could be created in a uranium reactor. Y-12, site used for the electromagnetic separation of uranium. In March 1948, after a period of uncertainty, these facilities were christened the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), a nuclear and high-tech research establishment. At the time, ORNL was operated by Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation (renamed Union Carbide in 1957) for the AEC. The AEC would eventually be abolished and replaced by the Department of Energy. Oak Ridge National Laboratory would become the nation’s largest supplier of radioisotopes for medical, industrial, and physical research, as well as a regional center for research in chemistry, physics, metallurgy, and biology. The laboratory would also conduct the largest radiation genetics program in the world. On March 19, 1949, the AEC removed all barriers and gates that had secluded the Oak Ridge community for nearly seven years and opened the city to the public. In March 1959, the town would be officially incorporated under Tennessee charter. History would count the Secret City and its residents among those who were an integral part of the human effort that forever changed the world and the understanding of the universe itself. Oak Ridge has continued to be a primary source of scientific discoveries benefitting the entire world. But for now, with the future of the lab itself in place as a national laboratory, it was time to build a financial institution to serve the several thousand employees who remained as it transitioned from war to peacetime research . . .

12 | 75 YEARS ORNL FEDERAL CREDIT UNION