The Manhattan Project-era Army Guest House, also known as the Alexander Inn, came one step closer to being saved this week. The U.S. Department of Energy has made a half-million-dollar grant to a local historic preservation group in Oak Ridge to buy and stabilize the now-derelict structure. The grant will buy time from the wrecking ball to determine the ultimate future of the building, which housed some of the nation's top military and scientific minds during the war. Also receiving funds was the K-25 gaseous diffusion plant, which still will be demolished but will be represented by an interpretive center. Both structures are slated to be part of a proposed Manhattan Project National Park, pending legislation now working its way through Congress.
I am so glad efforts are being made to save such buildings. History is just as much in the fabric of a building than in any book or painting.
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