DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — The government is exploring national park status for sites involved in the World War II-era Manhattan Project nuclear bomb research effort.
The sites being examined are Los Alamos National Laboratory and town site in New Mexico, the Hanford site in Washington state, Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee and assorted sites in Dayton.
The top-secret project resulted in scientific and technological advancements that ushered in the atomic age and helped the United States win the war.
The Manhattan Project operated from December 1942 until September 1945 and employed 130,000 workers at its height.
Research done at several laboratories in Dayton produced polonium used to trigger the first atomic explosion in 1945 and the bomb dropped over Nagasaki.
Congress directed the park site study in consultation with the Department of Energy.
