Oak Ridge: The Secret Atomic City

The US government successfully hid an entire city of seventy-five thousand people right in

the middle of Tennessee. It wasn't on any map, visitors were stopped by armed guards,

and the whole thing was built for one specific purpose: to build the atomic bomb.

Back in the forties, the government seized fifty-nine thousand acres of farmland and built the town

of Oak Ridge from scratch. To get the original farmers to leave without asking questions,

the military lied and said they were building a demolition range, hoping the threat

of constant explosions would keep people away. Construction happened so fast that contractors

were handing over keys to a new house every thirty minutes. They used these prefab structures