They Built 3 Secret Cities. Workers Weren’t Told Why.

The secret cities of the Manhattan Project were real American towns: Oak Ridge, Hanford and Richland, and Los Alamos. Built in a hurry during World War II, fenced, guarded, and full of people who were told never to ask what they were making. In this documentary, we go inside the secret city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the barracks city at Hanford and the government houses of Richland, Washington, and the mesa town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, where everyone shared one address. These were company towns like no other, and the families who lived in them found out what they had built on the same day as the rest of the country, August 6, 1945. In this video: • The farm valley in Tennessee that became Oak Ridge, and the families who had to leave • Cemesto houses, hutments, mud and boardwalks, and the seven guarded gates • The young women at the Y-12 panels who were told they could not know what they were doing • White Bluffs, Hanford and the Wanapum people along the Columbia River • The Hanford camp, the biggest trailer camp in the world, and the bomber the workers bought with a day's pay • Los Alamos Ranch School, the Romero homestead and P.O. Box 1663 • The day the secret came out, and the day Oak Ridge opened its gates • What is left of the secret cities today Chapters: 0:00 The newspaper with three words 1:40 A quiet valley in Tennessee 4:30 Gates, badges and the young women at Y-12 5:55 Hanford and White Bluffs 7:23 The city made of barracks 8:45 Richland, the government town 9:29 Los Alamos and the ranch school 10:45 One address for a whole town 12:16 August 6, 1945 13:46 The gates open 15:05 What the secret cities left behind 17:14 Did your family work there? Did anyone in your family work at Oak Ridge, Hanford, Richland or Los Alamos, or in another war plant during the Second World War? Tell us the town in the comments. We read every one of them. Subscribe for more stories about the towns, the factories and the things America built: https://www.youtube.com/@SmokestackAm... Sources: • National Park Service, Manhattan Project National Historical Park (nps.gov/mapr): site selection, Elza Gate, hutments, Oak Ridge alphabet housing, Richland's alphabet houses, displacement at Hanford, Hispanic homesteaders and Los Alamos, 109 East Palace, Hanford High School and the White Bluffs bank • Atomic Heritage Foundation / Voices of the Manhattan Project (ahf.nuclearmuseum.org): civilian displacement at Oak Ridge and Hanford; oral histories of Reba Holmberg, Annette Heriford, Opal Drum, Vincent and Clare Whitehead, Lydia Martinez; Truman statement of August 6, 1945; life at Oak Ridge and Hanford • Y-12 National Security Complex historical articles (Bill Wilcox, Gladys Owens, Roane-Anderson); Tennessee Encyclopedia, "Oak Ridge" • HistoryLink.org (Hanford, Richland); Oregon Historical Society, Richland Villager extra "It's Atomic Bombs" (August 6, 1945) • Los Alamos Historical Society and LANL (Ranch School, P.O. Box 1663, Dorothy McKibbin's gate, wartime births) • Library of Congress Law Blog, "The Atomic Energy Commission Sells Houses" (2013); Washington State Department of Ecology and U.S. Department of Energy (Hanford cleanup) • Yakima Herald, the "Day's Pay" B-17 (1944) Music: "Lightless Dawn", "Hidden Agenda", "Long Note Four", "Dark Times", "At Rest" and "Lasting Hope" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Image and film credits: Most photographs are U.S. government works in the public domain: U.S. Department of Energy (Oak Ridge photos by Ed Westcott and others, Hanford and Los Alamos historical photos), U.S. Army, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Atomic Energy Commission, National Park Service, National Archives, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of War Information, Abbie Rowe (Truman Library), Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress), via Wikimedia Commons. Films: "Atomic Bomb Manufacturing Plant: Hanford Engineer Works" (1945), United News newsreel (1945), "World Celebrates Peace, VJ Day" (1945) and Truman's statement (1945), National Archives, public domain, via archive.org. Oak Ridge postcards: Standard Souvenirs & Novelties, Knoxville (public domain). Oak Ridge Journal front page (1945), public domain. Clinton Engineer Works maps: Arthur S. Hardyman (public domain). White Bluffs Band (1937): Hilscher Studio, Wenatchee, no known restrictions (DPLA). Pajarito Plateau: Kent G. Budge, CC0. Los Alamos Historical Museum: Marcin Wichary, CC BY 2.0. Tennessee Valley Authority (1933), BLM and wartime British and OWI photos: public domain. Stock video clips: Pixabay (Pixabay Content License). #SecretCities #ManhattanProject #OakRidge