The Disappearing Nuclear Landscape: Snapshots of Lost Atomic Technologies

The three sites examined in this article served as major production centers in the nuclear weapons assembly line of the Cold War. They employed thousands of American workers during their operational lifespans, exposed even more to health risks, and harmed the environment in ways still being explored. These sites were unique in American industrial manufacturing and performed as components within the larger machinery of the nuclear weapons fabrication system. The preservation experiences at the three sites reflected ongoing struggles to interpret the outcome of the Cold War. The machines and engineering achieved during the operations of these facilities no longer exist on the physical plane. Structures that housed them were obliterated and in some cases buried on site in proximity to their original locations, alongside the very waste generated by these technologies. Technologies associated with the nuclear weapons production sites are being torn down and replaced by monuments; not to weapons production but to remediation and cleanup.