Secret Town
Original Town Sites
Castle on the Hill
Opened on March 15, 1943, “The Castle” became headquarters for the Manhattan Engineering District. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took over and all Manhattan Project construction was directed from 1943 – 1945. The U.S.E.D. employees moved from their original location, a building used by an automobile dealership and repair garage on Central Avenue in Knoxville. Each time a section of the Castle was built, a desk was moved out onto the floor of the new Administration Building.
The Castle is now the Federal Building, housing the U.S. Department of Energy’s offices. The training buildings behind DOE were part of the original Administration Area and are used by the Resident Graduate Program of Oak Ridge Associated Universities. The lawn on the Turnpike side of the Federal Building, the scene of the community Easter egg hunt for many years, was declared surplus property in 1984 and sold to private investors in 1985.
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