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Local History

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Oak Ridge Room

The Oak Ridge Room at Oak Ridge Public Library was dedicated in September 1986 as part of the Library’s celebration of Tennessee’s Homecoming ’86. This unique collection was established to gather, catalog, and preserve the records and history of the “Secret City,” and to provide assistance to the public in researching Oak Ridge history. Special collections, documents, reports, and artifacts reveal what life was like in the 1940’s when Oak Ridge was a brand new town built to government wartime specifications.

In addition to historic photograph collections, the Oak Ridge Room also contains a large collection of books on the development and history of the Manhattan Project, including many biographies of some of the key scientists and military personnel. The collection also includes telephone directories from the 1940’s-2020’s, maps, floor plans, and blueprints. This digital collection highlights many of the popular, informative, and unique items at the Library. Current information about our city government and issues important to citizens today are also included.

Our Services

Local Author Spotlight

We celebrate authors and artists local to Oak Ridge and its surrounding areas.
Titles by these authors are highlighted in our library with their own label and are shelved in the Reading Nook. 

Ghoulish

Ghoulish: The Art of Gary Pullin

Ghoulish Gary Pullin. Remember that name. For more than ten years artist Gary Pullin has been taking art galleries, movie theater walls, and social media by storm with his fresh, inventive takes on film, music, and television properties. Equal parts nightmare and nostalgia, his instantly recognizable style always strikes a chord with fans, and his coveted and acclaimed pieces sell out in lightning speed. A go-to artist for official film artwork, concert merchandise, LP packaging, and endless other pieces of pop culture ephemera, Pullin has put pencil to paper for various film posters.
The Promise of Change

The Promise of Change

In 1956, one year before federal troops escorted the Little Rock 9 into Central High School, fourteen year old Jo Ann Allen was one of twelve African-American students who broke the color barrier and integrated Clinton High School in Tennessee. At first things went smoothly for the Clinton 12, but then outside agitators interfered, pitting the townspeople against one another. Uneasiness turned into anger, and even the Clinton Twelve themselves wondered if the easier thing to do would be to go back to their old school. Jo Ann–clear-eyed, practical, tolerant, and popular among both black and white students—found herself called on as the spokesperson of the group. But what about just being a regular teen? 

Household Inventory

Household Inventory

Connie Jordan Green has mined seventy years of steady and reverent observance of the exquisite intricacies of the daily, the absolute beauty of the mundane, the richness of earth and family, the poetry woven into the plainest of minutes. Here love is shaped by the familiar object, the common and almost invisible gesture, the sharp edges of what life hands us. From the “bins brim[ing] with onion bulbs” to “egg and sperm together…inventing mathematics” to “the wolf stretched on the hearth,” Green gives order to the chaos of a “world that wants to be made perfect.” In her “household inventory,” Green shows how spent days drop poems like seeds in the fertile garden row of one’s personal landscape.
The Frog Blog

The Frog Blog

While hopping through life, Christina takes a look at the value of a daily approach to life’s lessons. No matter the outcome of your day whether it goes to plan or not, there is always something that we can learn. We can learn joy in despair and we can learn triumph in failure. Through the lens of her own life, Christina invites readers to look at their lives from a perspective beyond their own lily pad, and to consider the pond as a whole. Her struggles, progress and accomplishments will ripple in your own life as you look for your own takeaways.

 

Local Authors

We celebrate authors and artists local to Oak Ridge and it’s surrounding areas.
Titles by these authors are highlighted in our library with their own shelf and labels. Search for other titles by local authors through our catalog.

Oak Ridge Firsts

  • August 13, 1942
  • September 19, 1942
  • November 15, 1942
  • February 2, 1943
  • February 18, 1943
  • June 2, 1943
  • May 29, 1944
  • September 6, 1955

  • Manhattan District

    Established contract with Union Carbide and Carbon for K-25.

  • Site of Oak Ridge

    General Leslie Groves selects the Oak Ridge site to build uranium processing plants. This uranium would be used in the “Little Boy Bomb” during World War II. This bomb was dropped on Japan on August 6, 1945, and was the first nuclear weapon used in warfare.

  • First Landowners Vacate

    Using the right of eminent domain, the United States government decided to force the sale of private land for wartime use and began purchasing the nearly 60,00 acres that would become Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

  • X-10 site

    Grading began on the X-10 site, later known as Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This was the world’s first operating nuclear reactor.

  • Y-12 Construction Started

    Ground was broken for the construction of the Y-12 Plant.

  • K-25 Construction Started

  • Oak Ridge Public Library Opens

    Oak Ridge Library opens fully to the public and issues its first library card.

  • Oak Ridge High School Desegregates

    Oak Ridge High School became one of the first schools in the South to desegregate.