Elza, Tennessee

Elza was a community in Anderson County, Tennessee, that existed before 1942. The area was taken over for the Manhattan Project. It is now part of the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Manhattan Project
When the federal government looked at sites for the Manhattan Project buildings that ultimately were sited at Oak Ridge, the Oak Ridge site was described in internal memos as "near Elza."Memo from Z. V. Deutsch to E. V. Murphree , April 29, 1942,   During World War II, Elza was the site of one of the security gates on the borders of the then-closed city of Oak Ridge. It was on the road from Clinton to Oak Ridge.

Community legacy
The Luther Brannon House, built in 1941, was a surviving structure associated with the Elza community., National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, July 1991. Section F, page 2.  

During World War II and for some time after, the Manhattan Engineer District and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission used several warehouses in the Elza area for storage of uranium ore and other materials. In the early 1990s, the U.S. Department of Energy cleaned up the site, where soil had been found to be contaminated by PCBs and uranium.T. J. Vitkus and T. L. Bright, Verification Survey of the Elza Gate Site, Oak Ridge, Tennessee , ORISE 92/L-30. Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, December 1992.

References

Category:Towns in Tennessee
Category:Anderson County, Tennessee