AIKEN, S.C. - At the onset of the Cold War, “Site Number 5" in South Carolina was one of 114 locations in the U.S. considered for the production of weapons-grade plutonium, tritium and other materials.
The federal government tasked E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company with this project. The company ultimately selected Site Number 5 in Barnwell and Aiken Counties southeast of Augusta, Georgia. In 1950, workers began transforming 310 square miles of rural agrarian towns into the Savannah River Plant, a nuclear industrial complex.
Today, the Cold War Preservation Program at DOE’s Savannah River Site (SRS) documents this period in U.S. history and makes stories of previous generations publicly accessible.
“Because of the layers of secrecy during the Cold War, people may not know what actually happened at the site," DOE-Savannah River (DOE-SR) Community Assistance Manager Parodio Maith said. “Our Cold War Preservation Program has been highly successful in preserving artifacts and buildings to better tell our story, ensuring that employees and members of the public don’t lose important pieces of our past."
Last year, the curation facility accepted 60 new artifacts to add to its vast collection ranging from blueprints and safety slogans to an entire control room from an experimental physics laboratory, 777-M, and an 8,000-pound vault door that once protected plutonium and tritium.
“There’s something for everyone here, for people who are interested in the history of technology and for others who are intrigued by the site’s culture. That’s what makes it a great collection," said Melissa Jolley, SRS curator with New South Associates. “The artifacts and documents serve as a reminder for why the site is here and why it’s a continuing story."
The facility staff scanned 20,000 historic negatives for photos depicting the employee culture of the atomic workplace, construction of buildings, and various types of equipment used in laboratories and nuclear facilities. The collection contains 580,000 negatives, and the goal is to inventory, organize and provide long-term archival storage.
Since 2000, program historian Mary Beth Reed has led an effort to research and write thematic studies, which are illustrated narrative documents based on oral histories and other research. The studies are available at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History website.
To date, the program has completed seven thematic studies, and the final one on Savannah River National Laboratory research and development is expected to be finished later this year.
“The Savannah River Site’s history is rich and complex. Each of these studies helps the public better understand what was accomplished behind the fence and speak to the site’s significant role in our national, state and local history. While it is a highly technical history, it also has great historic storylines that speak to the people that created the site and operated it," said Reed of New South Associates. “So it is big history and little history, and that is what makes it so fascinating."
Last year, the program hosted 25 tours with 225 visitors and four meetings for the historic preservation community. Staff members created a traveling exhibit for the Augusta Public Library, and they continued to collaborate with the newly established SRS Museum on exhibits.
“Future generations will be so far removed from the tensions of the Cold War," said Andy Albenesius, Cold War history manager with Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the site’s management and operations contractor. “Our program puts into perspective the effort involved with building the site and its advanced technology for its time, how instruments and machines were designed and how they worked successfully. Ground was broken February 1951, and all five reactors were up running critical by March 1955."
In the late 1990s, DOE-SR started reviewing the site’s Cold War facilities for significant historical documents and artifacts.
In 2004, DOE-SR entered into an agreement for the preservation, management and treatment for the National Register of Historic Places-eligible properties within SRS.
DOE then tasked the Cold War Preservation Program to identify facilities for preservation, write histories, provide public outreach and collect and manage artifacts that date from the site’s selection in 1950 to the end of the Cold War in 1991. A cultural resource management plan outlined how historically significant buildings eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places would be treated prior to deactivation and decommissioning.
“I don’t think you can talk about the history of 20th-century South Carolina without talking about the Savannah River Site," Reed said. “It made for demonstrable changes in the state - technologically, economically and socially. It was especially influential for colleges and universities within its proximity. We talk a great deal about lessons learned at the site. In researching our history, we can learn from it. That’s what makes us a great nation."
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
