Has anyone heard of Oak Ridge, Tennessee? Does the term "Manhattan Project" sound familiar?In the 1940s the United States government built this secret city called "Oak Ridge" to initiate the "Manhattan Project"--an endeavor that would result in the creation of the world's first atomic bombs.
So what does any of this have to do with the Turpin family?
Between the years 1797 and 1805, Martin Turpin entered Tennessee by raft on the Clinch River. He first lived someplace in Knox County, but soon he and his family were living in what is now Anderson and/or Roane Counties. According to family historian, John Strunk, the Turpins lived in Bethel Valley--the site where one day a high security plant known by code name "X-10" would be built.
(The property passed into the hands of the Christenberry family in the 1860s or 1870s; the Turpins lived elsewhere at the time when the government began the Manhattan Project.)
This week I am making a personal trip to Oak Ridge to gain a better sense of where Martin Turpin and his son, James, may have lived.
