OAK RIDGE

city on the Anderson-Roane county line, eastern Tennessee, U.S. It lies in a high valley along the southern slope of Black Oak Ridge, between the Cumberland and the Great Smoky mountains; it is a part of the Knoxville metropolitan area. The site was selected in 1942 as the headquarters for the U.S. wartime atomic energy program known as the Manhattan Project. Originally called Clinton Engineer Works, it was chosen because it was isolated, yet had access to power, water, and transportation. The town, built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers behind security fences, reached a peak population of 75,000 in 1945. Oak Ridge now bears only slight resemblance to the war boomtown. In 1949 the fences were removed; in 1953 roads through the plant areas were opened, and for the first time land was leased for private construction. In 1955 the U.S. Congress provided for the sale of property in Oak Ridge. The community voted to incorporate as a city in 1959. The city's economy depends mainly on production and research in the nuclear energy field. A number of nuclear-related and electronic industries specialize in radioactive pharmaceuticals, electronic instrumentation, and machine making and toolmaking. The Oak Ridge Associated Universities constitute a nonprofit educational and research corporation of some 50 Southern universities. The city is the site of the American Museum of Atomic Energy and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Graphite Reactor, which is a national historic landmark. Melton Hill Dam, a Tennessee Valley Authority river-control project, is at the southwest edge of Oak Ridge. Pop. (1992 est.) 28,130.