Growing pains

Web posted Sunday, November 5, 2000

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By Sandy Hodson
Staff Writer

In 1950, no one in the quiet communities in the Central Savannah River Area could have predicted how his destiny - and the decade - would be affected by a single decision.

To compete for superiority in the nuclear weapons war, the United States had to produce tritium, the radioactive ingredient. To get the element in bulk, government leaders and scientists looked throughout the nation for a place to build a huge facility, a project deemed at the time on a par with the Panama Canal.

Their sights landed here.

On Nov. 28, 1950, it was announced that the Atomic Energy Commission had selected a 250,000-acre site along the Savannah River in South Carolina.

Parts of Aiken, Allendale and Barnwell counties made up the site for Savannah River Plant. The initial investment of $250,000 would grow to $1.4 billion.

Before construction began, however, those living in Ellenton, Dunbarton, Meyers Mill, Hawthorne, Robbins, Leigh and Sleepy Hollow had to go. About 1,500 families were given 18 months to evacuate. Those in construction priority areas had six weeks, according to the SRS history publication Savannah River's Patriots of the Atomic Age.

News reports at the time stated that those uprooted from homes, some of which had been in families for generations, took the displacement with stoicism described as patriotic at the time. ``I hate to see Ellenton dissolve like this, but if this plant will help end the war, we shouldn't really complain,'' filling station operator James Utley was quoted in The Augusta Chronicle.

Political leaders swelled with pride over the choice of the site. ``I am glad that South Carolina and her people can have a part in helping this nation maintain a free world,'' then Gov. Strom Thurmond said.

The welcome mat on both sides of the river was well used. By June 1951, 8,000 workers were at the site. In September 1952, the work force pushed up to 38,600.

Between January 1951 and 1955, the Atomic Energy Commission constructed a self-sufficient plant, the agency's largest project at that time, according to the SRS publication. The five reactors, two chemical separation plants, a heavy-water plant, a fuel and target manufacturing area and laboratories were constructed. The project also meant 230 miles of new roads and South Carolina's first cloverleaf intersection, in addition to power plants, the SRS publication notes.

Where cotton once grew, huge concrete buildings rose. At the peak of operations, enough water to service the city of Augusta rushed through the plant's pipes every day.

As SRS grew, so did the surrounding area. All those new workers needed homes, places to shop, schools for their children, and government services.

Permanent homes replaced trailer cities, subdivisions grew, shopping areas sprang up and established businesses expanded through the 1950s.

By the end of the 1950s, Augusta's population had grown by 25 percent and the number of residents in North Augusta had tripled, according to the SRS publication. Aiken, Williston and Barnwell doubled in size, and Ellenton became New Ellenton with not only displaced residents living there but also those who came to work at the plant.

The city of Jackson, by January 1955, reported $500,000 spent for homes and businesses in the ``home and capital of the Savannah River Project,'' according to The Augusta Chronicle-Herald New Year's Day edition in 1956.

Aiken had grown and matured, with a new city charter, to the point that it needed to hire a city manager for the first time. In 1955, the county's hospital and schools expanded.

But growth brought aches, too. In 1954, a bond proposal to fund the building of a ``superhighway'' from Augusta to meet with the South Carolina bridge, joining Augusta with Aiken and SRS, failed. It's failure wasn't based on the money, according to news reports, but the fact the road would wipe out several of Augusta's oldest homes between Fourth and Fifth streets.

By 1955, with civic and business leaders throwing their support and strength behind the issue, however, the measure passed 3-1 among voters. The corridor would open.

SRS itself continued to expand, as did the work performed inside and outside the plant.More than 100 million pine seedlings planted in the first year were joined by 400,000 seedlings per day by the next. By the end of the decade, SRS had developed and patented its own machine to plant rows of seedings. And the area once prized by hunters became a sanctuary for wildlife.

Reach Sandy Hodson at (706) 823-3226.

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