History-minded staff saved early Graphite Reactor model.
A historic ORNL relic has turned up in a central campus office. The portable scale model of the Graphite Reactor was once used for show-and-tells during ORNL's early days.
The model was saved from being discarded years ago by Mark Baldwin, a now-retired environment, safety and health organization staff member who had an office at the Graphite Reactor. He passed the model to co-worker Deb Austin when he retired in late 2013.
"I basically rescued it from heading to the trash and kept it in my office a long time," Mark says.
The meticulously detailed model is accurate right down to the institutional green color. Inside is an array of tubes that represent the channels for fuel and control rods. The famous face of the reactor and the experimental ports on the south side are also detailed.
Several pictures exist of the model being displayed to VIP visitors, usually by Charles Cagle, who was on the reactor operations staff and one of the operators who generated the first nuclear power with a toy steam engine and flashlight bulb in 1947.
Cagle is shown with the model in preparation for display at the Atomic Energy Museum in 1951, and in another 1955 photo explaining the reactor to a U.S. Information Agency group that included representatives from Egypt, India, Iran, Pakistan, Syria and the Gold Coast. Another undated, but likely 1950s or late 1940s vintage photo, has a group of important looking gentlemen studying the model in the Graphite Reactor.
Deb believes she's even seen a photo of Gen. Leslie Groves with the model.
"I'm a history person and these kinds of things fascinate me. I felt honored to work in a place like the Graphite Reactor and to know people like Charlie Cagle and Luther Pugh."
She contacted Cathy Martin, Pugh's daughter, who works at the High Flux Isotope Reactor. They are considering a permanent home for the model.
It has, as they say on Antiques Roadshow, "provenance."
