Ohio city seeks role in proposed Manhattan Project NHP
DAYTON — Local heritage leaders are proposing a national park to commemorate Dayton’s vital contribution to the Manhattan Project that could be operated locally but recognized and funded through the National Park Service.
The proposal was presented to National Park Service officials after a park service study failed to recommend Dayton as a potential site for a new national heritage park devoted to the Manhattan Project — the $4 billion, top-secret effort during World War II to develop the first atomic bomb.
Dayton was one of four sites studied for a new park because it’s where the polonium trigger for the atomic bomb was designed and built. Historians agree that, without the success of the work done in Dayton, the bomb would have never worked.
Of four sites studied, the park service recommended only Los Alamos, N.M., where the Manhattan Project was headquartered, for a new national park. Dayton, Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Hanford, Wash., were dismissed for cost reasons.