During the Cold War, Lockheed Martin partnered with the Air Force to build a remote secret laboratory in the middle of a 10,000-plus acre wilderness in Dawson County, Georgia. The land was purchased by Lockheed from a local landowner named Roscoe Tucker who had acquired large tracts of land in the 1930s. In 1957, Lockheed deeded the land to the government and together they built a nuclear testing facility. The Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory (GNAL), also known as Air Force Post 67 (AFP-67), was born.
Originally, the site was intended on testing the feasibility of a nuclear-powered aircraft. It was the only site in the United States designed to test the effects of radiation in the open air. In order to accomplish this, several impressive buildings and support facilities were built.
Among them was the Radiation Effects Facility (REF), a stainless steel shell that surrounded an underground 10 Megawatt reactor. The reactor was located inside a 30-foot-deep vertical concrete shaft filled with cooling water. In the Reactor Building, items could be irradiated with up to 2,000,000 curies of gamma radiation.
There was an underground operations room 30 feet southwest of the reactor. The top floor of the building was five feet below ground. In order to access the operations room, one would travel a 660-foot-long tunnel underground in a moving cart. The operations building was 88' x 100' and three levels high.
In the underground buildings, pumps were installed to keep water from flooding the rooms because of the water table.
A man operates the reactor controls from the underground main floor
A 2.5-mile-long railroad track would allow aluminum cars to transport materials from the REF over the Etowah River to the hot cell building.
The hot cell building was a separate stainless steel building with an interior concrete building that housed four hot cells. The concrete walls were six-feet thick. Tests were done here on items assembled on a series of rail cars manipulated by mechanical arms and viewed through protective glass.
Near the entrance of the facility, the Nuclear Support Facility (NSF) - Administration and laboratory buildings were housed. Just northeast of the admin buildings was a gravity-fed water cooling tower. To the northwest of the admin complex, was a meteorological tower.
Also present was a 320-foot aircraft warning tower.
In the far Northeast corner of the GNAL property, the Shield Defense Facility (SDF) was where a hanging reactor was supposed to be. It was purchased but never installed. There were also two pump houses, one on the eastern flank of the Etowah, and the other on the northwestern side of the Etowah near the SDF. The test area of the property was surrounded by a fence that marked the perimeter of where one would die had they scaled it during a test.
Hence it was known as the lethal fence.
Overhead view from the Southwest
Testing quickly revealed that a nuclear-powered aircraft would not be feasible. Apart from the complications that may be caused by a crash or downed plane, other issues occurred when a plane was near high radiation levels. Among them, the tires would turn to liquid, the hydraulic fluid would become a chewing gum-like substance, and solid-state electronic circuitry would fail.
Tests were also carried out on the environment. In one such test, every living thing within 1,000 feet of the reactor died. In another, they discovered that small animals would become what the scientists would describe as "instant taxidermy". All of the bacteria on the animals would die (along with the animal), thereby slowing down the decomposition process. The largest animal tested was a mule. It died instantly.
In 1961, at the advice of the Secretary of Defence, The Kennedy Administration killed the program and Lockheed began looking for other contracts to justify keeping the site active.
By 1964, Lockheed was doing contract work conducting tests on irradiated superconductors. Not long after, in 1965, the radiation-induced polymerization of wood products became popular. Lockheed began infusing wood with plastics by irradiating them with gamma rays. The guys at Lockheed called it "Lockwood" and sent a shipment to the Atomic Energy Commission Headquarters in Germantown, Maryland for their parquet flooring.
There are semi-conflicting accounts on "who" provided the flooring. Gammapar is an early brand of gamma-induced flooring that is thought to be the product provider. Lockheed Martin referred to their product as "Lockwood". Regardless of who provided the flooring, the AEC headquarters, as well as the original flooring of the Kansas City International Airport, both had Gammapar (gamma parquet) floors installed in the early 70s.
In 1970, Lockheed decided it was no longer profitable to be involved in their Dawsonville site. In April 1971, they started dismantling the facilities, and railroad tracks, and even dynamiting the trestles. The land was sold to the City of Atlanta in 1972 in plans to build a second airport. Those plans have since fallen apart, as have plans to build a 2,000-acre lake and reservoir.
In 1975, the City of Atlanta tasked the DNR with watching over the Dawson Forest City of Atlanta Tract.
Since 1977, testing of the property for radiation has routinely happened. Today, the background radiation of the site is harmless.
Today, the remains of many of the former foundations and buildings may still be seen. Of the over 10,000 acres of the tract, only 3 acres are fenced in and have restricted access. While on-site, I found a laminated message warning trespassers against entering restricted areas. Regardless many of the fenced areas had newly added sections to repair recent vandalism.
Warning found by author near the outside of hot cell fence
The north side of the hot cell building
Footnote: I was very surprised to learn that Wernher Von Braun, the former Nazi rocket scientist: Father of space travel, Father of Rocket Science, and Father of the American Lunar Program, had visited the site in 1963. After World War II, Von Braun immigrated to the United States along with 1,600 other scientists as part of Operation Paper Clip. He was the Chief Architect of the Saturn V rocket that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the moon.