The Secret City Festival

However you feel about nuclear war and nuclear power, The American Museum of Science and Energy at 300 S. Tulane Ave. in Oak Ridge will provide an in-depth look at the history of the Atomic Age, teaching you something you didn’t know when you arrived.

This first museum of nuclear energy opened in 1949 the same day the “Secret City” of Oak Ridge, created as a military base for the production of the atomic bomb that ended World War II, first opened to the public. A new permanent exhibit, “Oak Ridge Story: World War II and the Manhattan Project,” sheds light on the city’s role with displays including oral histories, the photographs of Edward Westcott Jr., artifacts and newsreels from the era.

Visitors can hear the stories of hundreds of families displaced from their rural homes when the U.S. Corps of Engineers claimed their land for the war effort, take a bus tour of the Manhattan Project plant or view exhibits on Oak Ridge Cultural Heritage, historic preservation of wartime buildings and “Secret City” housing facilities for the 75,000 residents that lived on the mysterious site.

The “Secret City” festival at 1403 Oak Ridge Turnpike will be held June 20 and 21 with “the largest WWII reenactment in the Southeast” recreating the Invasion of Normandy, along with evening concerts by The Turtles and Mary Wilson of the Supremes, children’s activities, arts and crafts and vendors.

The festival is free from 11 a.m to 6 p.m. June 20 and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 21.