Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory Tunnels - 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. The development of a nuclear powered aircraft was never realized.
Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory Tunnels
It is conjectured that a firewall and containment system needed to protect the flight crew failed to be successfully developed. Some claimed that the containment and firewall systems were too heavy for the aircraft. Lockheed also used the reactor to test the effects of radiation on military equipment.
Today, the remains of many of the former foundations and buildings can 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. In 1972, The City of Atlanta, anticipating the need for a second airport, purchased the Lockheed facility and an adjacent 10,000 from Pickens County.
The airport was never built and the property fell into disrepair. Access roads eroded, people used the site as a dumping ground for garbage, and general deterioration of the property occurred. It is said that the site was selected for several reasons, but mainly because of its location.
It was considered an "easy commute" from the Lockheed facility in Marietta, then known as Air Force Plant # 6. The site was also remote and unpopulated, thereby providing a "well-shielded area" where very little existed.
The two bridges that connected the railway to various sites were demolished when GNAL was being dismantled. However, the abutments remain along the river, as do the track beds. The underground facility at the reactor area where employees remained when the reactor was operational, also remains.
This area contained three levels and included a tunnel that connected the reactor facility to an underground parking garage. The underground facilities were kept dry during all the years of operation by a series of pumps.
It is now flooded due to the high water table in the area. Today, the Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area shows little signs of its former use, except as previously mentioned. This property has abundant wildlife and is used for recreation.
It is also used by hunters, hikers, horseback riders, and curiosity seekers. From time to time, stories of mutant animal sightings are repeated. However, nobody has been able to confirm any sightings of five-legged deer or cyclops animals wandering through the woods of Dawson Forest.
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.
Near the entrance of the facility, the Nuclear Support Facility (NSF) - Administration and laboratory buildings were housed. Just northeast of the administration buildings was a gravity-fed water cooling tower. To the northwest of the administrative complex, there was a meteorological tower.
The potential threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union prompted more experimentation at the Dawson Forest site. The U.S. government was studying how our country would or could rebound after a nuclear attack. It was equally important to understand the effects on our renewable natural resources, such as lumber, and if the natural environment would recover from such an attack.
The 10,000 plus acre site had three main areas spread across several miles on the property. The facilities were all connected with an internal "narrow-gauge" railway system. The separate sites include a nuclear reactor, a cooling site and a hot-cell building.
There was also an underground "shielded site", where employees waited when the reactor was operational. Other buildings include an underground parking facility, miscellaneous storage / warehouse buildings, and research laboratories. The initial intent of the facility was to research and develop a nuclear powered aircraft.
Remember, this was during the "Cold War" when some in the government believed we needed an aircraft that could remain in the air for weeks without having to land to refuel. This was a top-priority project for the US.
military, as they were confident that the Soviet Union had made significant advances in this area. 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. There was an underground operations room 30 feet southwest of the reactor.
The top floor of the building was five feet below the ground. In order to access the operations room, one would travel a 660-foot-long underground tunnel in a moving cart. The operations building was 88' x 100' and three levels high.
The effects of irradiation on the surrounding area prompted new tests. Studies by the University of Georgia, Emory University and The Atomic Energy Commission were conducted. These studies examined the effects on wildlife and the surrounding vegetation when exposed to massive doses of radiation.
The results of these experiments were devastating to all living things in the test area. Thus, the rumors of mutant animals flourished. 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. 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. Lockheed closed the facility at the end of 1971. Only a few above ground remnants of the GNAL remain today. Some of the building foundations and the hot-cell building, with its forty-eight inch thick steel and concrete walls, are still standing.
The hot cell building was sealed due to contamination concerns and is surrounded by two fences. This building is considered one of two "hot spots" that remain on the site. The reactor site is also sealed and fenced due to contamination and public safety concerns.
Originally, the site was intended for 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.
Filed under Uncategorized Tags: architect, Dahlonega, Dawson County, Dawson Forest, Dawson Forest Wildlife Management Area, Georgia Highway 400, Henry Zuckerman, Lockheed Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory, north georgia builder, Paulding County, Paulding Wildlife Management Area, Pickens County The bucolic community of Dawsonville, some 40 miles north of Atlanta, became home to the Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory (GNAL) from the 1950's until 1971. In 1956, the United States government purchased 10,000 acres of open fields and woods from the Tucker family of
Dawsonville. Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, along with the Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission, began construction of the GNAL- also known as Air Force Plant # 67. The site is near the intersection of Highway 9 and Dawson Forest Road in Southwest Dawson County.
Nuclear scientists began to understand that different materials took on new qualities once irradiated. This new series of testing led to the formation of Lockheed Nuclear Products. Various products were transported on rail cars to the reactor site, irradiated, then sent to the cooling site.
One such product was wood. Ordinary pine was injected with a resin, then irradiated. The resulting product was marketed under the name "Lockwood." It is said that this wood was used as flooring in the Atomic Energy Commission facility in Maryland.
These areas are still monitored every three months for radiation contamination by the Georgia Environmental Division. Although some hot spots of Colbalt 60 and Europium 152 remain, officials conclude that there is little to no risk to the public.
The rumors circulating about the former site of the Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory have become folklore and remain an interesting topic of conversation for Dawson County residents. Tall tales of deer with three eyes or two sets of antlers are common.
Also, some claim seeing an "albino" black bear and other albino animals. Despite these rumors, today Dawson County is anything but remote and unpopulated. The "400 corridor" has been the impetus for increased commercial and residential developments.
Dawson County is home to many mountain, lake, and golf communities. Tens of thousands of families now call the area home. 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. Most North Georgia residents had no idea that Lockheed was operating an "air-shielded" nuclear reactor on the Dawson Forest site.
An "air-shielded" reactor is a nuclear reactor that is physically hoisted into the open air when operational and returned to its "storage-pool" (in this case a concrete pool built into a natural "hollow" on the property) when not
in use. It should be noted that each time the reactor was operational, the area surrounding the reactor was irradiated along with the intended "target." 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.
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. In June of 1959, and again in August of 1960, the forest area surrounding the reactor was subjected to lethal doses of radiation for weeks at a time.
The reactor was only shut down on weekends and during employee shift changes. The effects of this irradiation became quite obvious to the surrounding environment. During the two years after the tests and at a distance of one mile from the reactor, tree growth was impeded and loss of foliage, leaf and bud production occurred.
Wildlife was all but eliminated from the area. 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 the 1950's, Dawsonville was a day's drive north on Highway 9 from Atlanta.
The Georgia 400 "corridor", as we know it today, was only a dream for a few visionaries back then. Elvis was the rage, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was President, and years before President Kennedy "faced down" the Russians during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States government was quietly building a nuclear facility in Dawsonville, Georgia.
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.
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