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Oak City and Delta, Utah

Original version: Mon Apr 23 15:04:05 2007
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During World War II, there were three candidate locations for the Manhattan Project atomic weapons laboratory. The first choice was Oak City, Utah, but the site was rejected when it was found that several dozen families would have to be moved, and a large area of farmland taken over. The second choice, Jemez Springs, NM, was rejected by Manhattan Project director General Groves. The third choice was a nearby boys school, Los Alamos (The Cottonwoods), NM, on top of a mesa, and it was the site selected in November 1942 for the lab, which today is known as Los Alamos National Laboratory. For historical details, see Richard Rhodes' book The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Simon and Schuster (1986), p. 450 (ISBN-10 0-671-44133-7, ISBN-13 978-0-671-44133-3).

The pictures below were taken on 14 April 2007.

Fool-Creek-Flat View across Fool Creek Flat looking SW to Oak City, UT (in the clump of trees behind the circled cowboy sign).
Little-Sahara View north from Fool Creek Flat to Little Sahara Sand Dunes state recreation area.
Oak-City-bowl View from the west side of Oak City toward the mountain bowl where the laboratory would likely have been situated.
Oak-City-street Looking east down the highway through Oak City.
Delta-IPP View north from Oak City. The coal-fired Delta Intermountain Power Plant (IPP), which supplies electricity to much of the Los Angeles, CA, basin, is visible on the horizon just to the right of center. The plant was constructed in 1979--198x, and uses coal brought by rail from Price, UT. The Manhattan Project laboratory needed huge amounts of electrical energy; perhaps an earlier power plant would have been built in 1943 near Delta had this site been selected. See also the Web sites of the Intermountain Power Agency and the Utah Geological Survey for more on the IPP.
Delta-view View northwest from Oak City. The highway in the center leads to the town of Delta, 18 km (11 miles) away.
Topaz-cabin Cabin moved from the Topaz internment camp to the Topaz Museum in Delta. There is a photographic history site at the University of Utah Marriot Library of the Tule and Topaz internment camps.
Topaz-closeup Closeup of Topaz cabin.