ML20053E866

Historical Rept on Crbr Site.

ML20053E866
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Site:	Clinch River
Issue date:	05/27/1982
From:	Schaffer D TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY
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. S Historical Report on the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Site l

Daniel Scha ffer, Ph.D.

Historian Tennessee Valley Authority 1982 8206100160 PDR 820527 ADOCK 05000537 PDR .

s This is a historical report on the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant Site prepared by Tennessee Valley Authority's Cultural Resources Program. The survey project was authorized by TVA and conducted in connection with its evaluations under the National Historic Preservation Act.

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In much of eastern Tennessee, geography has been destiny. The abrupt ridges and narrow valleys of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant ,

site (CRBRP) in Roane County make it characteristic of-the region, not only in physical terms but also in terms of cultural patterns. The undulating

'orested ridges create a series of natural barriers between the valleys where farming--the lasting occupation of the area--has taken place.

Sparsely settled, the region's culture has been shaped by the farmstead and small town. Social interaction.has evolved around the church and country store, which serve as the physical containers through which the sacred principles of family, community, and religion have been expressed. (Fielder 1977: iii)

The CRBRP site is an 1,364-acre bell-shaped peninsula framed by Chestnut Ridge on the northeast; the Clinch River curls around the site's southern perimeter to form what residents commonly called the " Bent." Self-sufficient farms, ranging frem 30 to 300 acres, dominated the area. Loamy sand to clay soils combined with steep ridges made farming possibic, but not prosperous. The most fertile soil was found on narrow wedges'of land along-side the river bottom. Corn was the staple crop; but oats, wheats, and vegetables were cultivated and livestock was raised to give variety to a family's diet and to provide a small quantity of commodities marketed in nearby towns. Less productive land on the ridges supported hillside farming or timbering--at 1 cast until the woodstands became unprofitable. In the early 20th century, fruit orchards were planted on the escarpments, but overproduction devalued the crop and the orchards were never as profitable as the farmers had anticipated. (Swann 1942: 9; Kirby 1941: passim)

Settlement patterns in the area followed the sweep of migration typical in eastern Tennessee. The region was first opened to white settlement l

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during the post Revolutionary War period at the turn of the 18th century.

Rewarded with land grants for their participation in the War.for Independence, j these pioneers--largely of English and Scotch. Irish descent--migrated to what in the early 19th century was the edge of the frontier. Eastern Tennessee was not only at the crossroads between East and West (civilization i

and wilderness), but also at the junction between North and South (free and e

slave). Thus the broad, and often contradictory, currents of 19th century American history passed through.the region and gave shape to the contours of its cultural landscape. Here an observer could find the yeoman farmer and slave, a respect for nature and the abuse oi it, a'dn the strength of community amid an uncompromising dedication to personal independence--often encouraged by the remoteness of the environment. (Bergeron 1979: chapters 2-3)

Even though Tennessee was the last southern State to leave and l r 4

the first to reenter the Union, its residents suffered through the economic aftershock of the Civil War. This period marked the beginning of a long

downward spiral in the economic and social well-being of the region. However, i

the dislocation of the 1860s and 1870s did not prevent northerners from i

viewing this era as a time of investment Opportunity in what came to be called the New South. Eastern Tennessee, and more specifically Roane County, briefly participated in this movement in the 1880s when northern entrepreneurs (headed

, by Clinton B. Fiske, the presidential candidate on the Prohibition Ticket in i

1888; I. K. Funk and A. W. Wagnalls of Funk and Wagnall Publishers, and rail-l road magnate W. C. Harriman for whom the town is named) built Harriman as a I

model of sobriety--an industrial community that restricted the production and

, sale of alcoholic beverages. The town's initial development was aborted by j the Panic of 1893. Nevertheless, the experiment--which took place about i

12 miles from the CRBRP site- gave Roane County a small industrial base, l

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, oversha'dowed, but not completely obliterated, by the predominant agricultural environment. (" Tennessee Synfuels Associate Site" 1981: 41)

Situated for almost a century along a corridor of rapidly changing 1 i

national events, eastern Tennessee passed through the turn of the century in l a state of relative tranquility. hithough its elements lingered in the l Appalachian Highlands, the frontier had long ago moved westward. Indeed, l in 1893 historian Frederick Jackson Turner argued convincingly that the American frontier had disappeared altogether, heralding a new era in the l Nation's development. Regional discord between the North and South caused 1

by the Civil War and its aftermath was dissipating, and the fleeting spark of activity associated with the New South had flickered and died. From an area that had been swept by events of national magnitude--the westward migration, the Civil War, and even the vague stirrings of the New South (which because of its moral persuasion and northern capital was neither new nor particularly southern)--Roane County would now move from center stage to the background, more an observer of national trends than an active participant in the process that would transform America from an agrarian to an industrial, urban nation.

In 1912 Rankin Hensley--a 12 year-old boy--climbed into a covered wagon packed with his family's possessions outside their home in southwest Virginia. With his father, uncle, brother, and cousins, Rankin began a '

journey southwestward to Roane County where eastern Tennessee's cheap land had lured his family. The 100-mile journey took 5 days to complete. To avoid the arduous trip, women stayed behind, rejoining the family by train l

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5 after the fathers and sons settled i'n on the land, a 215-acre tract along the " Bent" on the Clinch River. (personal interview, Hensley)

Rankin. would live on that farm for 30 years,.. inheriting a 160-acre portion of the original tract from his father in the 1930s, at which time he built a 2-story wood-framed house for himself and his wife--

a structure typical of others in the area. He grew a diversity of crops, raised livestock and cut timber, mostly for his personal consumption but some for markets in the nearby trading center of Wheat or in the larger towns of Rockwood and Harriman. Although Rankin did not attend the Wheat school two miles away, he was aware of its excellent reputation. He did, however, t

benefit from Wheat's demonstration farms that helped to combat the problems of soil erosion and to improve the productivity--and profitability--of the land. With the assistance of TVA and The University of Tennessee's Extension Service, the annual income of the farmers in the Wheat demonstration area increased 50 percent during the last 3 years of the 1930s from the Depression depths of $200 annually. Rankin also attended church regularly,

where his wife was an active volunteer. His living conditions and lifestyle were thus characteristic of those who resided on what has become the site for the CRBRP. Rankin's " ordinary farm" did not enjoy the benefits of mechaniza-tion, and his meager cash income of several hundred dollars each year did not

, permit his family to purchase more than the basic necessities; but neither he I nor his family was plagued by abject poverty. Roane County by the late 1930s

! was a cultural environment defined by modest, self-sufficient farmers, like Rankin Hensicy, who grew enough food for themselves and their families.

(personal interviews, Hensley and Meneymaker; Seventeenth Census of the U.S.

1942; Kirby 1941: 28-29).

In 1942 Rankin would again pack his possessions to move. In the darkest of secrecy, the land he owned had been included in the Manhattan

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Engineering District by the War Department and condemned for Government acquisition. Unknown to'anyone except a few key Army and scientific l personnel, Rankin's farm formed part of the 56,000-acre land base where research for the first atomic bomb would be conducted. The project would not only uproot Rankin Hensley and 1,000 other families within its 93-square-mile designated district, but also would dramatically transfirm the economic, l l social, and cultural fabric of the surrounding area. Within 3 years, the i -

town of Oak Ridge (formerly a thinly settled area of farmsteads and small towns, 10 miles from the CRBRP site) would explode into a city of 75,000 residents, the fifth largest in Tennessee. In the valleys between the ridges would be built a . graphite reactor, a gaseous diffusion, and an electro-magnetic plant--structures symbolizing the new age of atomic power within the traditional setting of Appalachia. The remainder of this report will concentrate on the dramatic point of transition when an area characterized by self-sufficient farmers became a prime location for some of the most advanced and awesome scientific research of the 20th century. (Hensley; personal interview; Jackson and Johnson 1981)

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In the South, William Faulkner has written, "the past is never dead.

It is not even past." This statement could be applied to Roane County in the early 1940s. Although the area did not resemble the detailed pictures of l Appalachian poverty taken by photographers who toured other mountain farm-steads and communities in Tennessee and Kentucky, it was nevertheless a place where cultural traditions played a central role. As other sections of the Nation were dramatically transformed by the advent of the automobile and electricity, Roane County residents--and more generally those throughout l

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7 eastern Tennessee- partook of these invehtions slowly and often only to the

extent that they could be placed within their conventional social matrix.

Whereas much of the rest of the Nation had plunged into an impersonal market economy and found itself exchanging goods.'in complex urban settings, Appalachia continued to be defined by the extended family, which remained a self-contained unit of production and consumption. With annual cash incomes averaging between $200 and $400, Roane County residents did not depend on the marketplace for their livelihood. The small quantities of goods they did 1

sell were either exchanged privately in the markets of Rockwood or Harriman or through agricultural cooperatives in Wheat. Thus in a world of increasing mobility and impersonal interaction, Roane County persisted on a bedrock of traditional principles structured arouno personal re,lationships, a keen awareness of place, and a prevailingi sens$ of past. (Roland 1982: 11; Kirby 1941: 14-29) J

.1 On October 6,1942, a Federal Marsha.ll served papers on Edward a f\7- ,

Carmack Browder as a means of condemning 5'6,200 acres',of Yand in Roane and f

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Anderson Counties--27,059 acres in Roane County, including the present site of the CRBRP. The notice stipulated t!iat all re'aidents be required to leave i.

their property by January 1,1943, and residents who lived on land critical

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to the first stages of the project were ordered to vacate by November 6, just l 6 weeks away. World War II was raging in Europe and there was a growing i

fear that Germany was perfecting the atomic bomb. (Manhattan District Hist.

ca. 1947: Vol. 10, 51) The United States felt that it was necessary to

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l build its own atomic weapon to protect the country against the German threat i

and to provide America with an awesome offensive weapon of its own. The ,

decision to engage in this research would not only become an integral part if , ):

of the war strategy, but also would fundamentally alter postwar international #

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The worldwide impact was thus profound. But the Manhattan

, 1,+ . > Projebt, as it was called, also exerted a profound impact on the residents l

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, e of Reane County--one measured not in the epic terms of international rela-

,1 tions, but rather in the personal terms of disrupted lives, ' caught in uncontrollable events. As William Gallaher, who resided on land adjacent tc the CRBRP site, stated in 1947:

Al? the folks in these parts were farmers. They worked the ground and minded their own business, peaceful folks living a simple life . . . . We didn't pay much attention to the out-side world and they didn't bother with us. That was up to

( #. 1942, anyway, when one day a man came to our house and said he was from the government. "We're going to buy up your land,"

, , he said to me. "All of it?" I asked. "Yes, sir," he said, "we're going to buy all the_ land in this section. Everyone has to go."

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I went oustide the house with the visitor and looked around me . . . up at the green hills my grandfather had come across '

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.. 100 years earlier, and I looked at the farm I'd worked for

, half accentury. I asked the visitor what the government was going to do and he said he didn't rightfully know, but it was for winning the war. (Robinson 1950: 35-36).

Since the summer, planes had flown overhead surveying the terrain and raising the anxiety level of war-conscious residents. "Did you ever hear the continuous humming of an airplane," one resident recently reminisced.

t "That was how it was; creating an eerie feeling of apprehension. Especially l

so because our nation was at war." When the Government informed them to "get out," at least the mystery of who was responsible for the reconnaissance had been' settled;?

but the reason for the acquisition was not conveyed. Residents belin ed that the district was restricted for weaponry experimentation and s

practi,ce, a rumor encouraged by the Government when it originally called the reserve the K'ingston Armv' Demolition Range. Indeed the nature of the mission would not be disclosed publicly until the first atomic bomb was 1 dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. (Moneymaker 1979: iv)

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9 The Government operated qu'ickly to determine and to secure a site for this top secret research project. An initial national survey of potential sites in the summer of 1942 narrowed the choices to: an undeveloped section of land just south of Chicago, which was determined to be too small; a remote area of California near Shasta Dam that was rejected because of its vulnerability to enemy detection; and sites in the States of Washington and eastern Tennessee--both of which were eventually chosen. The criteria used to select the hills of Appalachia as a research center reflected the extraordinary na'ture of the project. The Army decided it would require an area between the Appalachian and Rocky' Mountains to enhance security in

. event of an attack; it originally desired a land mass not less.than 200 square miles containing a large swatch of territory that could be developed into a town without extensive excavation; it needed a place that could supply an abundant amount of electrical power--between 100,000 and 150,000 kilowatts on demand--and approximately 376,000 gallons of water per minute for industrial uses alone; and it looked for a region with a stable labor force and an adequate transportation system. With many of these attributes, the site in Roane and Anderson Counties along the Clinch River proved to be an ideal location. "The region," the Army reported, "was abundantly supplied with water from the Clinch River and possessed desir-able features with regard to topography, drainage, soil constitution, climate, and rail transportation. There was a local labor supply, and the land could be acquired at a reasonable cost." Ironically, the ridge and valley terrain which gave the area its distinctive physiognomy and social character also made it a prime location for secretive research to develop the atomic bomb. "It was desirable," the Army concluded:

10 th'at the individual plant sites ~and townsite area should be separated from each other by intervening ridges. The radiation hazards

. . . made it mandatory that a safety distance of at least a four-mile radius surrounding the plant be be provided, preferably with intervening ridges. An area bounded by natural barriers, such as rivers and ridges would assist immeasurably in affording security control.

Thus the environment that nurtured the culture of the Appalachian Highlands and insulated it from dramatic social change in the 20th century also could serve -- +he basis for scientific research on the first atomic bomb.

(Manhattan District Hist. ca.1947: Vol. 10, 52; Vol. 12, 2-3)

The Army usually acquired land through direct purchase, but the urgency of the Manhattan Project necessitated that they obtain the land through condemnation to avoid lengthy negotiations with the landowners.

To speed the process, the Army established a land acquisition office in nearby Harriman and placed 17 assessors on the job. Most were transferred from the Army Corps of Engineers' Ohio River Division or from the Southeast's Federal Land Banks; but others came from TVA or from private real estate firms that had conducted business in the project area. On July 23, 1942, a War Department directive was issued for a gross appraisal of 80,000 acres along the Clinch River. When the condemnation order was filed in the U.S.

District Court 2 months later on October 6, the project's land base had been reduced to 56,000 acres, consisting of 758 individual tracts. (Manhattan District Hist. ca. 1941: Vol. 10, appendices)

Assessors, who were not told why the land was being taken, immediately faced a number of obstacles in assembling the necessary acreage far the project. In many cases, a tract was held under several names, complicating the condemnation proceedings; boundary descriptions were not clearly defined in the deed books; and the residents' suspicions were often heightened by the assessors' inability to explain the ultimate reason for displacement. Once these issues were overcome or forgotten, an even more

11 sensitive set of problems arose. TVA's construction cf Norris Dam, beginning in 1933, and Watts Bar Dam, in 1939, had reduced the area's river bottom farm acreage. Indeed a portion of the farmland along the Bent" on the Clinch River--including a section of Rankin Hensley's farm--had been flooded by the raised water level following the construction of Watts Bar Dam. TVA projects thus decreased the size and number of farms in both Anderson and Roane Counties, aggravating the difficul't problem of relocation. TVA practiced a liberal purchasing policy and obtained easements or title to the land at the equivalent rate of $300 per acre. TVA also followed a vigilent and sensitive relocation policy in which it tried to find comparable properties for those it displaced. Therefore, the residents had become accustomed to a certain level of compensation and personal consideration when the Federal Government negotiated to purchase their land. Charged with the secret mission of perfecting the atomic bomb, the Army operated under a different set of priorities than TVA. Its primary concern evolved around winning the war in Europe, not uplifting the social and economic status of the people of the Tennessee Valley. Unlike TVA, the Army did not allocate funds for relocation; displaced residents were left to fend for themselves, a problem compounded by the large influx of construction workers and scientists who flooded the burgeoning community of Oak Ridge and created a severe housing shortage in their wake. The condemnation proceedings meant that the people were forced to leave the land before the Government gave them any money for it. Since the Army intended to use the existing housing stock for lodging incoming workers, native residents were ordered to take only their personal possessions.

Any parts of the structures- gutters, shutters, windows, doorframes--had to remain intact. Thus many residents, whose families had lived on the

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12 land for generations, were left to s'earch for housing with little or no capital in a market plagued by shortages and rising prices. (Browder and q Moneymaker, personal interviews)

For many, Government payments for their land would not be received until 6 months after they had been evicted. Even then the sums of money offered by the Government did not appear adequate to those who had been

. forced to vacate their farms. Two broad assessments and an individual inspection of each site resulted in the Government paying an average of

$34.26 per acre in Roane County and $44.10 per acre in Anderson County.

This meant, for example, that landowners on the CRBRP site received from

$1,165 for a 34-acre tract to $6,167 for a relatively large 180-acre farm-stead. Rankin Hensley found it necessary to divide the $5,482 received for his family's 160-acre farmstead among four of his father's heirs (since 1912, one quarter of the original 215-acre tract has been sold). I'n a summary report on the history of the Manhattan Engineering District project, the Army concluded that "the appraisal had been carried on by competent-men . . . . The general management of the project, the appraisal of the land, and the approach to the landowners have been fair and just."

It was a judg-4 ment with which many of the residents disagreed. (Manhattan District Hist.

ca. 1947: Vol. 10, 2.36; Roberts 1981: 122-124)

Indeed the landowners were disturbed by the treatment they had received from the assessors. They accused them of misrepresentation, contending that Government officials promised immediate payment if they accepted the Army's offer, or 75 percent of the offer even if landowners .

rejected it and decided to contest the decision in court. Residents charged 4

that the assessors did not physically inspect the property; inaccurate dollar figures, they contended, were derived from cursory desk reviews.

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13 Finally, they claimed that they had suffered substantial losses because they had been forced to dispose of their property, livestock, and machinery on such short notice. Potential income was lost as crops rotted in the field; the prevailing price for farm equipment was not obtained because of

the need to sell it immediately; and possible profits derived from property improvements were compromised because structures had to be left entirely intact. But the bottom line for angry residents was that they had been shortchanged, that the amount of money they had received for their land was neither representative of its value or sufficient to purchase a comparable tract elsewhere.

Dissatisfied landowners sought to redress their grievances through administrative and legal procedures. Tennessee State law required that

disagreements over prices resulting from the Government's condemnation of private property should be sent to a Jury of View for arbitration. But the wide divergence between the Government's and residents' estimated land values meant that the recommendations of this administrative body would not be acceptable to both parties. Residents argued that Government assessors undervalued the land by as much as 50 percent; Roane County acreage, they insisted, was worth $60, not $30, an acre. Due to these differences of opinien, only five cases were submitted to the Jury of View before this procedure was abandoned. The rest were sent to court. When litigation began, the Department of Justice organized "a group of three to six local men . . . in addition to the regular appraisers, to review and adjust . . .

all appraisals submitted to the Court." For landowners, legal proceedings provided the last avenue to redress their grievances; the Government,

conversely, would have preferred to reroute their protest onto a less visible track. (Manhattan District Hist. ca. 1947

Vol. l'0, 57)

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. 1 Residents continued to arg'ue they had been unjustly treated und harmed by the Government's action. Mr. M.' N. Manley, an assistant county agricultural agent in Roane County, who participated in the efforts to relocate displaced farmers, declared "that the offers by the Government were insufficient to purchase similar property." The Government responded by insisting that the appraisers, with some regrettable minor exceptions, had behaved in a reasonable and fair manner. Indeed government review of land transactions in the area between 1937 and 1942 revealed that ';3 per acre was the average selling price, thus making the Army's offer of $34 per acre more than generous. Officials also pointed out that over 60 percent of the landowners had signed agreements with the Government,.whereas in other projects it was not uncommon for two-thirds of the property owners to reject

the Government's valuations. (Manhattan District Hist. ca. 1947

Vol. 10, 3)

While the dispute wended its way through the courts and t'e h i

Department of Justice, citizen dissatisfaction was given anothet forum when in August 1943 the House of Representatives Military Affairs Subcommittee convened in Clinton, Tennessee (county seat of Anderson County) to investi-gate the Anny's land acquisition policy. Representative Clifford Davis presided; Dewey Short and John Sparkman were in attendance. The sessions provided a well publicized pulpit from which landowners could air their complaints. George Cagley, whose family lived on a farmstead within the Manhattan Engineering District, voiced a typical concern--one tinged with patriotism, but nevertheless indicative of the personal hardship caused by displacement. He pleaded with the Congressmen to arrange for:

A peaceable compromise with.our government to hold our homes.

It puts lots of the families and little, poor children out of homes. We believe helping out with the war and we can't see how us giving up our homes would help any. I am sure for helping with the war for I have already got a son in the armed forces, and am buying var bonds and stamps, but we can't help much if we've got any place to live on and grow stuff for them.

(Manhattan District Hist. ca. 1947: Vol. 10, appendices).

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. e A parade of residents appeared at the hearings to testify that the Government undervalued.their land by 40 to 50 percent. Olla Elizabeth Anderson, for example, claimed that her father was offered $10,000 for a tract valued at $16,000 by an independent appraiser; Mr. C. F. Ballard stated that the Government proposed to give him $450 for a tract that had a fair market value of $1,500; Mrs. Roy Scarborough declared that the Government put i

forth an offer of $5,000 for a 142-acre farm' stead worth, in her estimation,

$15,000. Similar testimony was. presented by other landowners over a 3-day period between August 11 and 13, 1943. Local newspapers, such as The Knoxville News-Sentinel, voiced sympathy for the plight of the landowners and concluded that "there was no reason . . . for them to give up their land for less than its worth." It cautioned others to recognize that "the protests of these Roane and Anderson County people . . constitute no reflection upon their patriotism. Like other area residents, these land-owners are proud to contribute to the war effort in a time of national crisis." Indeed, at the same time, it was critical of the Army's treatment of county residents, it expressed delight at the Army's decision to locate the project here. Not only did the project give residents a tangible way to display their

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i patriotism, but "from a selfish standpoint," the newspaper stated the project enabled the " area [to) develop industrially." The attitude of The Knoxville News-Sentinel reflected the ambiguity most residents--including those displaced--eventually felt toward the creation of the Manhattan Engineering .

District. (Manhattan District Hist. ca. 1947: Vol. 10)

At the time, however, congressional Representatives took a more critical posture than local newspaper reporters. One Representative castigated the Army and Federal Land Bank agents for mistreating the owners

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f and asserted that the " appraisers need a reappraisal." Although equally l

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16 critica'1, Congressman Davis admitted that the House Military Affairs Subcommittee was unable to do anything about this matter directly; but he believed that it could " bring pressure . . . to clear the question up and prevent its recurrence anywhere elst." He reasoned that "the people should have that to which they are entitled. No more, but certainly no less."

To fulfill this pledge, in December 1943 the Subcommittee submitted a list of recommendations to the War Department, including one that called for

" proper adjustments" on land settlements in the military district and compensation for those residents who suffered crop loss. The Subcommittee also urged the War Department to nullify transactions made under duress, coercion, or threat. To avoid future disputes in condemnation proceedings, it suggested that land appraisers from the immediate project area be hired and that management arrange for close supervision of the field workers to avoid misconduct and misrepresentation. (Knoxville Journal: Decem'er b 6, 1943)

As Representative Davis acknowledged, the Subcommittee's findings I

and recommendations carried the weight of moral and political persuasion, but not legal obligation. The landowners' only recourse for financial '

l compensation was through the courts, an expensi.e and risky proposition l

since any additional payment derived from a favorable decision might be

! absorbed by legal fees and court costs. Nevertheless, those residents who l

I did take the issue to court received on average 15 percent more than.the I

amount originally offered by the Government assessors, an indication that l

l the Government undervalued the land but not by the enormous percentage l

claimed by the landowners.

! On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, an event that changed the course of world history. For the first time, residents in and near the Manhattan Engineering District were told l

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17 about the objective of Oak Ridge's secret mission. Their lives, especially those of the self-sufficient farmers (who, like Rankin Hensley, for example, lived on the CRBRP site), had already been dramatically transformed. Although the Army did not keep detailed records, it was estimated that 60 percent of the displaced farmers found jobs with the Oak Ridge research facilities.

Others, who.did not work directly for these research centers, often benefited economically from the dramatic population growth of the area. Ed Browder, an oil company jobber named in the condemnation order issued by the Govern-ment, saw his gasoline sales increase from 165,000 gallons to 400,000 gallons a month as a consequence of Government-related contracts, all spurred by work at Oak Ridge. From a business struggling to weather the storm of the Depression, Mr. Browder suddenly found his company in the bright light of prosperity. Other personal accounts, although not as dramatic, indicate that Oak Ridge brought financial security to people who rarely enjoyed the benefits of a steady income. Russell Moneymaker, Dorathy's husband, went from share-cropping to the Oak Ridge Fire Department. ' Generalizing from her experience and her knowledge of what happened to others, Dorathy Moneymaker states that, "although people resented" the Government's action, "there's noboby that moved out that we've talked to . . . that wasn't better off" after the Army arrived in 1942. As the economic benefits derived from the Government's presence increased and as the historical importance of the events that took place here became clearer, the bitterness of the displaced farmers faded.

e The evolution in the attitude of the families caught up in this epic event has been captured in a recent statement by Dorathy Moneymaker: "There was resentment, then there was acceptance, and then a certain sense of pride."

(Browder and Moneymaker, personal interviews) l

• 18 Thus the events that occurred on the CRBRP site and the rest of Manhattan Engineering District between 1942 and 1945 forever altered the region's economic and social fabric and the lives of the people who had lived there. Undoubtedly, the events have paramount regional significance.

However, what happened here also tells us a great deal about the nature of-Government in America, with implications that extend throughout the Nation's political framework. At a tlme of unprecedented crisis, the Government permitted public forums and legal hearings to take place that enabled landowners to air their grievances over the price the Government had offered them for their land--land that had been taken as a war measure to combat the threat of Nazi Germany. This dispute between the Government and its people illustrates the resiliency of American democracy, even during a crisis of the first order. The issue around which the debate evolved also reveals the strongest and most persistent currents of the Nation's democratlc impulse--the sanctity and value of private property. Thus in a period of unprecedented tension and change, the wartime events in Roane County exemplified the bedrock of constitutional tradition upon which the Government functions. The lives of the people who lived on the CRBRP site were dramatically altered by the creation of the Manhattan Engineering District, but the national values in which they believed were not; indeed in the course of the political and legal events that followed, they were expressed as forcefully as ever.

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19 Appendix This report has been the result of a historical survey conducted as part of a cultural resources investigation of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant site (CRERP). The survey began with a review of previous cultural resource reports that focused on the historic structures (or more accurately remnants of historic structures) found on the site. The most-useful of these reports were George F. Fielder et al. " Historic Sites Reconnaissance of Oak Ridge Reservation"; Prentice M. Thomas, "A Map of Two Historic Sites by the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant"; and Gerald F.

Shroedl, " Historic Sites Reconnaissance in the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant Area." These reports studied the physical evidence left by onsite structures and evaluated their architectural significance.

To gain an understanding of the relationship of the CRBRP site to broader currents in the region's historical development, a survey was then conducted of the primary and secondary historical literature. This approach is a necessary prerequisite to determine whether or not a site has historical significance on a regional or national scale. It was discovered that county histories of varying content and quality abound. Two worthy contributions that outline the growth of the area are: " Cultural Resource Survey and Evaluation: Tennessee Synfuels Associate Site, Oak Ridge Reservation, Roane l County" and Eugene M. Pickel, Roane County, Tennessee 1801-1981. In addition, there is a series of books and master's theses that focus on the 1

county's early history, most notably Snyder E. Roberts, Roots of Roane County, Tennessee 1792-Present, and Eugene M. Pickel, "A History of Roane County to 1860." The story of the atomic city of Oak Ridge, carved out of the hills of Roane and Anderson Counties, also has been written about extensively; for a history of that town, see George 0. Robinson, Jr. , The Oak' Ridge Story, and Charles 0. Jackson and Charles W. Johnson, City Behind A Fence.

20 Thus the broad historical evolution of the area had been documented j adequately--except for one major omission. Patterns of settlement prior to

. the creation of the Manhattan Engineering District in 1942 had been analyzed; the unique story of the construction of Oak Ridge between 1942 and 1945 had been studied. Missing, however, was any discussion concerning the period of dramatic change when Appalachian farms were turned into the setting for

atomic weaponry research. We knew what happened . . . people were displaced and their lives were disrupted as a part of the cost of the war effort. But

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there was only scant documented information on the response of the Government, the reaction of the displaced families, and the attitude of local officials.

Indeed Government documents describing and justifying Federal land acquisition policies were just declassified in 1981. Equally important, no one had evaluated the historic significance of this important episode, one that had

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significance not only in terms of its impact on the region's development, but also in terms of the history.of the. relationship between Government and

its people. It was as if an archaeologist had discovered an abrupt end-to human habitation on a particular site and did not feel that the event 1

warranted comprehensive analysis. Surely such a dramatic episode--whether found in the prehistoric or historic record--demands our attention. And l its full significance can only be determined by exploring not just what

! happened, but also why and how it happened. A historic survey and evaluation

, concentrating on this event thus became the focus of the report.

i What emerges from this report is some attention to the second most i

important event in the history of the site and its people--second only to l the first wave of migration in the early 19th century. What also emerges is l a significant story of Government policy at a time of crisis--a story that illustrates one of the strongest underpinnings of the Nation's political framework, and one that helps to draw a fuller portrait of the cultural t

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21 landscape of not only the CRBRP site, but the region and Nation as well.

This information forms a base of knowledge to be used in evaluating the significance of cultural resources that might be affected by the Clinch River Breeder Reector Project.

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References Bergeron, Paul H. Paths of the Past: Tennessee 1770-1970. Knoxville:

University of Tennessee Press, 1979.

" Cultural Resource Survey and Evaluation: Tennessee Synfuels Associate Site, Oak Ridge Reservation Roane County, Tennessee. Atlanta:

Environmental Research and Technology, Inc. , December 1981.

Fielder, George F., Jr., Ahler, Steven R., and Barrington, Benjamin.

" Historic Sites Reconnaissance of.the Oak Ridge Reservation. Oak Ridge, Tennessee," 1977.

Folmsbee, Stanley J. Tennessee, A Short History. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1969.

Fowler, William Joseph. " History of Roane County, Tennessee 1860-1870."

M.A. thesis, The University of Tennessee, 1964.

Jackson, Charles 0., and Johnson, Charles W. City Behind A Fence: Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1942-1946. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1981.

Kirby, Lincoln Gosser. " Factors Affecting Farm Earnings in Roane County, Tennessee." M. A. thesis, The University of Tennessee, 1941.

" Manhattan District History Book I - General: Volume 10 - Land Acq'uisition."

Department of Energy Archives, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

" Manhattan District History B'ook I - General: Volume 12 - Central Facilities."

Department of Energy Archives, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. .

Moneymaker, Dorathy S. We'll Call It Wheat. Oak Ridge, Tennessee: Adroit Printing Co., 1979.

Pickel, Eugene M. "A History of Roane County to 1860" M. A. thesis, The University of Tennessee, 1971.

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Pickel, Eugene M. Roane County, Tennessee, 1801-1981. Kingston, Tennessee:

Roane County Heritage Commission, 1981.

Roberts, Snyder E. Roots of Roane County, Tennessee, 1792-Present. Kingston, Tennessee: Roane County Pub. Co., 1981.

Robinson, George 0., Jr. The Oak Ridge Story. Kingsport, Tennessee:

Southern Pub., Inc., 1950.

! Roland, Charles P. "The,Ever-Vanishing South," The Journal of Southern

! History XLVIII (February 1982), 3-20.

Schroedl, Gerald F. " Historic Sites Reconnaissance in the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant." A report submitted to the Tennessee Valley Authority, Knoxville 1974.

23 Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, Agriculture: Vol. 1, First and Second Series State Reports: Statistics for Counties. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1942.

Sparrow, Martha Cardwell.

"The Oak Ridgers " .

M.A. thesis, Mississippi State University, 1980.

Stith, Lee Street. " Rural Leadership in Roane County, Tennessee." M.A.

thesis, The University of Tennessee, 1942.

Swann, M. E. Soil Survey: Roane County, Tennessee. Washington, DC:

d Government Printing Office, 1942.

Thorton, Mable Harvey. " Pioneers of Roane County, Tennessee 1801-1830."

unpublished manuscript, The University of Tennessee Archives, McClung Collection. .

l The Watts Bar Project: Tennessee Valley Authority, Technical Report No. 9.

i Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1949.

Wells, Emma Middleton. The History of Roane County, Tennessee 1801-1807.

Chattanooga, Tennessee: The Lookout Publishing Co., 1927.

I Thomas, Prentice M. "A Map of Two Historic Sites in the Clinch River Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor Plant Area, Roane County, Tennessee " A report submitted to the Tennessee Valley Authority, Knoxville 1973.

Vance, Robert B. Human Geography of the South: A Study in Regional Resources and Human Adequacy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1932.

Interviews John E. Arnold, Oliver Springs, Tennessee, January 27, 1982.

Edward C. Browder, Harriman, Tennessee, February 18, 1982.

Dorathy Moneymaker, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, January 27, 1982.

Rankin Hensley, Oliver Springs, Tennessee, February 2, 1982.

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