Manhattan Project Signature Facilities
"The discovery of how to release nuclear energy was arguably the most important human discovery since fire—reason enough to preserve its remarkable history."
—Pulitzer-prize winner Richard Rhodes
 In a national survey at the turn of the millennium, journalists and historians ranked the dropping of the atomic bomb and the surrender of Japan to end the Second World War as the top story of the twentieth century. The advent of nuclear weapons, made possible by the Manhattan Project, not only helped bring an end to that war but also ushered in the atomic age and determined how the next war—the Cold War—would be fought. In addition, the Manhattan Project became the organizational model behind the remarkable achievements of American "big science" during the second half of the twentieth century. President John F. Kennedy invoked the spirit of commitment and patriotism of the Manhattan Project in announcing the goal of putting a man on the moon by 1969, while President Richard Nixon did the same when establishing Project Independence during his administration.
The Department of Energy feels a strong sense of responsibility for its Manhattan Project heritage. As the direct descendant of the Atomic Energy Commission, the civilian agency created to take over and operate nuclear weapons research and production facilities following the Second World War, the Department has begun a process to preserve and interpret—in place, if possible, in a museum or other setting if necessary—the historically significant physical properties and artifacts from the Manhattan Project era. Eight properties have been designated "Signature Facilities," which, taken together, provide the essential core for successfully interpreting for the American public the Manhattan Project mission of developing an atomic bomb. The Department’s goal is to move forward in preserving and interpreting these properties by integrating departmental headquarters and field activities and joining in a working partnership with all interested outside entities, organizations, and individuals, including Congress, state and local governments, the Department’s contractors, and various other stakeholders.
These Manhattan properties are first-of-a-kind or one-of-a-kind facilities and devices that used some of the century’s most innovative and revolutionary technologies. Hanford’s B Reactor, which created the plutonium for the Trinity device, was the world’s first production reactor. Scientists and engineers designed the K-25 gaseous diffusion plant at equipment in the world, still stand, complete with operator panels and telephone switchboard, almost exactly as they did during the war.
 The eight Signature Facilities of the Manhattan Project are: the Metallurgical Laboratory, the X-10 Graphite Reactor, the K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Process Building, the Y-12 Beta-3 Racetracks, the B Reactor, the T Plant Chemical Separations Building, the V-Site Assembly Building/Gun Site, and the Trinity Site. Two of the facilities—the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago and the Trinity Site on the White Sands Missile Range near Alamogordo, New Mexico—are not owned by the Department. The other six are the Department’s direct responsibility.
At DOE’s request, the President’s Advisory Council on Historic Preservation convened a panel of distinguished historic preservation experts who visited the Signature Facilities, evaluated their historical significance, and developed recommendations and preservation options for the Department’s consideration. The Advisory Council delivered the panel’s final report to the Secretary of Energy in March 2001. The panel unanimously agreed with the Department that the Signature Facilities are of extraordinary historical significance and stated that they "deserve commemoration as national treasures." Not only do they qualify as national landmark status properties, the panel concluded, they are also of World Heritage Site significance. The report urged the Department to support efforts to convey to DOE employees, contractors, and the public the powerful story of the role the Signature Facilities played in one of the paramount events of the twentieth century. Secretary Abraham promised that the report’s recommendations would be integrated into the Department’s planning for the Signature Facilities. In Public Law 107-66, signed by President Bush on November 12, 2001, Congress directed the Department to prepare a preservation plan for the Manhattan Project.
The Signature Facilities of the Manhattan Project and other physical artifacts remaining from that effort represent a great human story, a story of a nation united in a common cause. It is the story of world-class scientists combining with industry, the military, and tens of thousands of ordinary Americans working at sites across the country to translate original scientific discoveries into an entirely new kind of weapon in the defense of democracy. When President Truman revealed the existence of this nationwide, secret project to the American people, most were astounded to learn that such a far-flung, government-run, top-secret operation with physical properties, payroll and a labor force comparable to the automotive industry existed. The project President Roosevelt approved in December 1942 had spent $2.2 billion and employed 130,000 workers at its peak by the end of the war in September 1945.
In retrospect, it is remarkable that the Manhattan Project produced an atomic bomb in time to help end the Second World War. Despite extraordinary obstacles, the United States was able to combine the forces of the scientific community, the federal government, the military, and industry into an organization that took nuclear science out of the laboratory and onto the battlefield. The Manhattan Project clearly demonstrated the importance of basic scientific research to our national security.
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