Most people are familiar with the Manhattan Project to some extent. They recognize the name Oppenheimer. They know about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But they don't know about Oak Ridge. The town was founded in 1942 and grew from a small farming community to a town of over 70,000 in three years. It was built for one purpose: to enrich as much uranium as they possibly could to try to get a bomb before Germany.

When we asked people how they felt about that legacy we encountered a broad spectrum of answers. There is no monolithic feeling about the Manhattan Project or its results like I had assumed there would be. One woman, whose mother worked in Oak Ridge during the project, told us that once she found out what she had helped build she couldn't sleep for weeks. Others are excited to be a part of history and take pride in it. Some people are still scared to swim in the lake because of radiation. Some people don’t give it a second thought. A few people who still work at the plants declined to comment at all.

The Story of John Hendrix

The title of the film refers to a man known all over East Tennessee as “The Prophet of Oak Ridge.” In the 1890s, after losing his daughter and being abandoned by his family, Hendrix, a local farmer, retreated to the woods for 40 days and nights to sleep on the ground and pray, believing that this act of faith would bring him divine revelations. One night Hendrix had a startling vision and ran to the nearest town to gather an audience at the crossroads general store. He told the crowd of his prophecy.... 

“I tell you, Bear Creek Valley someday will be filled with great buildings and factories, and they will help toward winning the greatest war that ever will be. And there will be a city on Black Oak Ridge and the center of authority will be on a spot middle-way between Sevier Tadlock’s farm and Joe Pyatt’s Place. Big engines will dig big ditches, and thousands of people will be running to and fro. They will be building things, and there will be great noise and confusion and the earth will shake...I’ve seen it. It’s coming.”

-John Hendrix, as told by George O. Robinson

Director's Statement

My Great Grandfather, Richard Anderson, who spent decades working at Y-12 after the Manhattan Project.

The legacy of Oak Ridge is a part of me too. My great grandparents worked in those plants during World War II. My grandparents worked there during the Cold War. A lot of my high school classmates work there now. While this film is an investigation into the history of Oak Ridge and the lasting impact of the Manhattan Project, it’s also an investigation into my own relationship with that inheritance. Through shooting this film I was finally struck by something that never really hit me before: my family, for better or worse, is a direct part of this history.

My great-grandparents are all partially responsible for creating the atomic bomb.

My Mom and her siblings with my Great Grandfather

Oak Ridge Today

The influence of the project extends to this day; the labs still dominate Oak Ridge both geographically and economically. They are by far the largest employer of people in the area which makes Oak Ridge somewhat of an anomaly among rural communities. Contrary to popular imagination of small southern towns, Oak Ridge has the single largest concentration of PhDs per square mile in the world. The crowd at my high school football games was full of some of the top scientists in the world. Oak Ridge High School has one of the top STEM programs in the country and kids are implicitly required to study math and science and engineering. Pursuing a career at the lab is just sort of expected.

Archival

The archival photos used in our video and on this page were all taken by Ed Westcott. Ed was the official photographer of the Manhattan Project and took thousands of photographs of Oak ridge at its peak of production and daily life. Other photographs, notes, and newspapers of the time have been chronicled in Oak Ridge and will add to our base of archival.

Project Status & How You Can Help

We have just wrapped principle photography and are very excited to bring this story to life! All the funds we are currently raising will cover post-production and outstanding production costs to help us get over the finish line in time for a festival run in 2024.

If this project sounds exciting to you but you aren't in a position to help monetarily we totally get it! You can also help by sharing the project to your Instagram, Twitter, or just telling a friend! Every little bit helps and we greatly appreciate any and all support. It means the world to us.



Thank you!

Thank you for your interest in our project. For further information please contact:

[email protected]

[email protected]