Oak Ridge, TN

Oak Ridge is an eastern Tennessee city in Anderson and Roane counties, about 25 miles west of Knoxville. It is best known as the secret Manhattan Project city where wartime atomic research and production transformed rural valleys near the Clinch River into a federal science community. That legacy is still present through Department of Energy facilities and national laboratory work. Oak Ridge also has older archaeological depth in the Clinch River valley, making it a place where ancient settlement and modern science sit unusually close together.