The X-10 graphite reactor at Oak Ridge went critical # OTD in 1943.
Built as part of the Manhattan Project, it was the second artificial nuclear reactor (after Fermi's Chicago Pile 1) and the first to operate continuously.
The High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), completed in 1965, is just down the road from the X-10 site. If you like well-designed control panels from the 1960s, please enjoy this beauty.
I visited the facilities a few years ago. It is pretty heavily forested back there, so much so that you might not notice the enormous Experimental Gas-Cooled Reactor as you drive by.
It reminds me of ‘Tales from the Loop‘, the 2020 Amazon Prime series, and the scifi art book of the same name by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhagn which inspired the series.
That's one of the reasons Oak Ridge was chosen as a site for the Manhattan Project. Remote, hard to find anything, easy access to plentiful hydroelectric power because of the TVA.
Related: Oak Ridge was remote and mysterious enough to get a mention in Manly Wade Wellman's "John the Balladeer" stories. In "The Little Black Train," John mentions learning about the Doppler Effect from "a man I know, place in Tennessee called Oak Ridge."
HFIR was a key component of the ambitious United States effort, in parallel with the Apollo lunar landing program, to produce unprecedented quantities of heavy transplutonium elements, including grams to tens of grams of californium.
@mcnees I was about to respond that CP-2 at Argonne was the second artificial nuclear reactor, but then I checked, and even though CP-2 was operational before the X-10, I see that what they did was dismantle CP-1 and build CP-2 out of the same graphite bricks and uranium eggs.
So CP-2 is just CP-1 with a rearranged pile. I didn't know that.
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