Before the War:  The Elza, Robertsville, Scarboro, and Wheat Communities

Other communities included Edgemoor, Bethel and East Fork, but not as much information is available about those communities.

Before 1942 when the U.S. government began buying up the farm land that now comprises the city of Oak Ridge, the area was populated by 3,000 people residing in approximately 1,000 homes scattered throughout these seven communities.

The Elza community was named after a construction engineer in charge of building a railroad bridge in that area. This was also once the home of John Hendrix, the "prophet" who around 1900 predicted that Oak Ridge would be created in Bear Creek Valley.

Robertsville was settled in 1804 by Collins Roberts, who had received a 4,000-acre land grant in what is now Oak Ridge. Robertsville High School was built there around 1915; its auditorium is now the gymnasium of Robertsville Junior High School.

Wheat, settled in the middle of the 19th century, was named after the first postmaster, Frank Wheat. It was the home of Roane College, a liberal arts college that was open from 1886 through 1908. The community was dispersed by acquisition of the land for the K-25 Site.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory and its surrounding land displaced Scarborough, which was founded in the 1790’s and named after three early settlers, Jonathan, David, and James Scarborough, brothers from Virginia. The area along the Clinch River had been called the Pellissippi by the Cherokees.