McDowell, Paul

              CITY BEHIND A FENCE INTERVIEWS



ORAL HISTORY OF PAUL MCDOWELL
Interviewed by Charles Johnson and Charles Jackson
May 22, 1976
Transcribed by Jordan Reed
 
MR. JACKSON: Mr. Paul McDowell, 103 Dixie Lane, May 22, 1976, [Charles] Jackson, [Charles] Johnson. You were saying about when you came here.
MR. MCDOWELL: I came in May of 1947, as an employee of what was then known as the Commercial Services Division, which later developed into Community Affairs Division. 
MR. JOHNSON: Was that still Roane Anderson?
MR. MCDOWELL: No, the main function of that division was to cut it off, cut all the city functions or anything that had to do with properties, the rental of the housing and things like that, to cut it, separate and be distinct from the affairs that were being conducted over on the Hill, in what was known as the Castle. All of the plant functions were handled out of that office. The main thing was to get this all segregated away from those functions. 
MR. JACKSON: Now this was AEC you were with?
MR. MCDOWELL: It was the Atomic Energy Commission. That was established in January of ’47.
MR. JACKSON: Right.
MR. MCDOWELL: The function was to get away, that section of the work and all of that kind from the other functions of the AEC. And to answer your question about Roane Anderson: Roane Anderson was the contractor that carried out all of this work under the direction, formerly under the direction of the Corps of Engineers, then also under the Atomic Energy Commission, when they took over. They were the contractor that, well, provided the people to do all this work and to rent the houses, conduct the police and fire, and the schools were really a separate and distinct division. They didn’t have too much to do with the schools. They did with the hospital, but that, they provided all the people and actually did all the work under the direction, or under policy that was laid down, or rules, guidelines that were laid down by the, formerly the Corps of Engineers, and later by the Atomic Energy Commission. Roane Anderson continued until 1952, I believe it was, sometime in ’52. Roane Anderson, which was, well, you know how a lot of people used to say it was, well, it really was made up because of the name of Anderson County and Roane County, but the Roane Anderson people were with Turner Construction and they wanted to be released from their contract. Mr. [Lyle] Worrel then was assistant manager for Roane Anderson, and he chose several people from the heads of the respective divisions of Roane Anderson. They formed the new corporation known as Management Services Corporation of Tennessee and they then took over the functions then that had formerly been performed by Roane Anderson. They continued then until, gee, I believe it was ’67 when their contract was terminated here. By then though, the main functions had been turned over to the city, the properties sold, and they did have some of the work from ’60 on through, and I believe it was ’66 or ’67. They had some other functions, outlining roads, construction and operation of the water plant, and things like that that were still being carried on. Their contract expired at that time and [inaudible] Engineering took over.
MR. JACKSON: Where did you come from when you came to Oak Ridge?
MR. MCDOWELL: I moved here directly from Jefferson City, Missouri, where I was employed by Fraser-Brace Engineering out of New York. I had been with Fraser-Brace for a good many years. I think I went with them in ’37, I believe it was. My home is Kansas. I was born and raised in a small town, Leesburg, Kansas, south of Kansas City, about 35 miles, but I was with the Federal Government, and the Public Works Administration, Federal Public Works, and then I went with Fraser-Brace when Fraser-Brace was building a TNT plant at Weldon Springs, Missouri, west of St. Louis. Then when this work was, well, we had several projects, one at Kingsport, Camden, Arkansas, but I had gotten back to Jefferson City, was there on a project when some of the people that were formerly with Fraser-Brace. Oh, and Nolan was formerly with Fraser-Brace. He was the one that asked me to come down and see about going to work here. I came down from Jefferson City.
MR. JACKSON: So then did you join the AEC here?
MR. MCDOWELL: Yes. 
MR. JACKSON: What kind of work were you doing with the AEC?
MR. MCDOWELL: Well, I came in here as, well, I headed up what they called the Commercial Services Division, under the Community Affairs Division. That embraced the housing, all of the housing rental and stuff like that as well, and the commercial rentals. Well, at that time, it also involved, I hadn’t given much thought to it lately, but it also involved the administration of the L&N contract, when the L&N was still functioning. It also involved the administration of the AIT bus contract, the American Industrial Transit. Oh, I think that’s about the main functions, but of course the most important, or the one that called for more attention was the housing, and the rental of properties, both commercial and residential. At that time, the, well, it was shortly after Tennessee Eastman had left here, and this was just sort of breaking up here in Oak Ridge. No one knew really what was going to happen to Oak Ridge. As a matter of fact, there were plenty of houses vacant, D houses, [inaudible] houses, all kinds of houses vacant, and there was quite a question as to which direction the town would go, whether it would go up or down. You know, it all depended upon what would finally be performing at the plants, after the bomb was dropped and all this stuff, but they began, as you well know, the developments then that were carried out at the plants that made Oak Ridge move along. I was talking with someone the other day and we were talking about these houses. They were built originally for a five-year life. I recall that was about one of the first things that we did at that time in ’47 was to make a survey and a study, which Roane Anderson performed, to determine, these were built for a five-year life and we were to determine then how much, what actually would be the life, could be the life of them. I recall then it was then set at 50 years.  Well, you can see why this happened. Of course, all of the cemesto houses, there were about 2,400, 2,450, I think, but a large percentage of them have been rehabilitated to some extent you know. Mainly with new roofs and siding and all. They have really been placed into pretty good livable quarters, you know. Again, I was discussing that with a real estate man, part of that was due to the fact that they had good materials in them. No one could question the floor plans of these houses. They were designed by Skidmore, Owens, and Merrill I believe. The floor plans were excellent. 
MR. JACKSON: They really are.
MR. MCDOWELL: That was one of the things that carried over. All the other problems in the housing, and that was an immense project. That together with the commercial, I can recall that the income for one year was about, approximately a million dollars, for Roane Anderson, with rentals and all this.
MR. JACKSON: Combined houses and commercial?
MR. MCDOWELL: Yes. This revenue was coming in. Of course, all of the houses were assigned then on a, well, on some sort of a quarter basis for the respective plants, all ways had been used before and they had continued that way, but the housing, the assignment of the housing was really a difficult thing to handle because everybody wanted them, knowing there was a limited supply. There was probably more contention over assignment of housing than over any other one thing, I suppose, but that was our responsibility, to give that policy to MSI, but they did the actual renting and signing of the agreements for the respective houses. 
MR. JACKSON: The Roane Anderson, you mean?
MR. MCDOWELL: Roane Anderson.
MR. JACKSON: They did the actual assignments.
MR. MCDOWELL: Yeah. They had a housing [inaudible], as I recall, was the one that was there for year and assigning houses. Then they did all the maintenance of the houses and, of course, at that time, when you said maintenance, well, it just included everything. During the war, they used housing as an implement to keep people satisfied, you know. They came up and put fuses in the house. People didn’t do anything. They didn’t even furnish the light bulbs, fuses in the house. So maintenance at that time was really a sizeable performance. They had a large crew to do it and they did an excellent job. They did all the painting inside the houses and things like that, but there are really so many facets to all of this that was going on. I just talked about this housing.
MR. JACKSON: We are very interested in the housing. 
MR. MCDOWELL: Well, the next thing I think that the government began to be aware of was the fact that they were doing so many things and it was costing so much money, although there was so much rent coming in, but they had to begin to devise means and methods of getting away from it. One of the most important ones, I guess, that they finally did was to reestablish the rents. Of course, the rents were very nominal, you know, again to induce people to stay, these important people, scientists and what not, but in 1948, I believe it was, well, I’m sure of it. In 1948, we became more aware of that. The rents should be restructured and we authorized Roane Anderson to engage Treadwell and Goldstein of Newark, New Jersey, to provide, to come in and make a survey of what the situation was and make a recommendation of, for new rents. Of course, among those things that they determined was to begin to turn over to the tenant, these many functions that had previously been performed by the government. They made a most complete survey. I never, now I forget when they were here. Several of us that were involved in this went around with them to see these houses, to acquaint them with them. Those two fellows could walk in a house, and through it, and out and I’ll swear, we had been associated with it for several years then and they could tell you really more than we knew because they just were familiar with that. They could see a lot and they could remember. We’d come back to have meetings on it and they would be talking about things. They had just seen these. They hadn’t read anything. They had just seen them and they would be numerating something about the Garden Apartments versus the D house that really we who were more familiar with them couldn’t recall. But anyhow, they came up with a, I was looking at a schedule of that rent the other day. If that would be interesting to you, I think I have a copy in there now that shows the comparison, shows what the rentals were, and what the establishment was.  They established three different levels, the high level, the ones with the good views, and then the middle section, and then the lower section. There were three classifications of them, but…
MR. JACKSON: Based on geography?
MR. MCDOWELL: Yes, well, it was an important thing because then, it was more important then than it is now because these trees have all grown up and don’t have those marvelous views. Everybody wanted to get a house on Outer Drive, for instance because they had marvelous views. Now the trees have grown up so and they don’t cut them back. The environmentalists won’t let them be cut back now. So the view is gone, but never the less, there are things about them up on the hill that’s more fascinating than down below. But that’s one of the main things. I suppose that could cause more furors in Oak Ridge to the square inch than any other one thing, when they raise the rents, but that was the most important, one of the most important steps to get this thing because we kept talking about normal, getting back to normal. That word normal is kicked around like nobody’s business. It was one of the important features of getting this back more realistic to the outside world. Of course, more and more they were then talking about incorporation and so those things had be brought around. I guess then the next most important thing that came up on the housing was when they did finally decide, and this was urged by quite a bit of the people, to sell this property to the people. The next thing that had to be accomplished was these houses were all laid out, no lot lines or anything. They were just set here. This was one of the first things that had to be done to accomplish the sale, and this was all done prior to the passage of the legislation. The Atomic Energy Commission went ahead to do it, spent the money to do it. We hired Michael Baker, Roane Anderson employed Michael Baker to do the survey.
MR. JOHNSON: Lot survey?
MR. MCDOWELL: Lot survey of all the property, both residential and commercial, plotted it all.
MR. JOHNSON: Because it hadn’t been lot surveyed when they set them down.
MR. MCDOWELL: No.
MR. JACKSON: I’ll be darn.
MR. MCDOWELL: They just come in and drew up a street and said, we’ll set a house here. They did a marvelous job now of locating these to be as interesting as they could, you know. Yet they stand up very good. The only thing that’s against them now is the proximity to the street. They are all right up on the street, most of them. Of course one of the other functions was they use to provide coal, you know, to the tenants. 
MR. JOHNSON: They didn’t want a long driveway going…
MR. MCDOWELL: No. they had a coal bin, right in the room that’s closest to the street and a little door on the outside. Roane Anderson again delivered coal to each resident. Well, a lot of features, in other words, they were built just about the reverse of what you find in an ordinary town. The front of the house was the more attractive part of the house and it was toward the street, but not with these, but no, to answer your question. There were no lot lines and then when they went to provide lot lines, there was a bit of a problem because people understood that that was what they were going to do and if a man, of course he didn’t know at that time he was going to be able to buy that particular house he was in. They were all interested in, where did that lot line come, and then too, a lot of people had lived in houses long enough that they had set out trees and plants and they said, “Well, that’s mine. I put that there.” So the lot lines got to be there. Well, Michael Baker did a marvelous job.
MR. JACKSON: This was, when were you doing this?
MR. MCDOWELL: Oh, gee. This was about ’48. ’48 and ’49 was about when they were doing their survey, but actually that was a tremendous job to do and they did an excellent job of it. Put pins, you can go out to the curb now and see a little place and see the mark on the curb, a lot of places you can. They are still here on my property. They’d set an iron pin on each corner and drive those iron pins. I can go out and find those iron pins of this property here, for instance. Just like they would be in any city, you know. All of the land had to be taken up. That is from the street back a-ways. They didn’t want to leave any places in between, but outside from one street to another, like between Delaware and California there is a big zone down there. That was designated for the city. Then too, on all of these lots when they were surveying they had to provide for easements for the sewer lines. Again that had to be coordinated then and maps over there at Roane Anderson of all the sewer lines, water lines, but those had to be coordinated on those surveys to know whether they, which property there were going to cross. So they observed a ten foot easement for water lines. All of that was necessary. That was another one of the really big accomplishments, really marvelously done, performed well. I just, you can’t, well, I, of course, followed it on through and you just would seldom come up on an error of any kind. The next thing that was necessary to do then after they did that was to, with the idea in mind, and then when the legislation finally came along, that is in ’55. We’d been doing these things for several years in preparation for, but when the legislation finally passed to continue with housing, in this conversation here, the next thing was the appraisal of the property. The AEC [Atomic Energy Commission] then brought in the FHA [Federal Housing Administration] to appraise all the property. Again that was a big, big job and they did well. We were familiar with what they were doing at Richland [Washington] at the time and also Los Alamos [New Mexico]. We were just [inaudible] here. Of course the AEC as a whole had to be, coordinate this pretty well with the other instillations so that they wouldn’t get crosswise on different things, you know, later.
MR. JACKSON: This was happening about the same time at Richland?
MR. MCDOWELL: Particularly at Richland. Some of the things were going on at Los Alamos too, but that was a different, well, it had to be handled by the AEC in a different manner than at Richland and Oak Ridge. But after the FHA came in and did the evaluation, then the HHFA [Housing and Home Finance Agency] came in to handle the actual sales. All of the records that Roane Anderson had were made available to the appraisers and all this and the same way in the AEC still had a lot to do with, through Roane Anderson, the preparation of, types of deeds that would be issued. Then the final part of the deal was the HHFA was to dispose of this property, and the priorities had to be set up for actual sell. At the time, you would, there was a lot of prospect as to whether these houses would sale. So we thought that they surely would and they were priced a reasonable price. Then also people who had also lived in a home and had done a good deal of work on it, improvements, they were given credits for those improvements, off the price, you know. But with the priorities, when they first put them up for sale, they really did sell all right. The occupant had the first priority to purchase a home. Then there were many other priorities and we had to phase those on down to be fair and reasonable about it and to keep from having a lot of problems that you couldn’t handle, but all of the sale business as far as the housing was concerned went along in very good order. There was, practically all the people who were occupants bought their house. Then the duplexes where there were a lot of other priorities that had to be exercised, that was all accomplished in real good order.
MR. JACKSON: What was the role of Tri-State Homes?
MR. JOHNSON: I think they were trailers and that kind of thing.
MR. MCDOWELL: Let’s see.
MR. JOHNSON: Dormitories?
MR. MCDOWELL: No, Tri-States was a subcontractor of Roane Anderson. For instance, one of the things I remember they did was replace a lot of drain boards and put in different sinks that had begun to deteriorate. That was one of the contracts with Tri-State Homes. The reason I remember it is because, well, there was some litigation that was involved, but I think you’re thinking of, let’s see, there was a firm that came in here and was subcontractors that really did formally a great deal under Roane Anderson of the housing, the rental and the maintenance. Oak Ridge Housing Corporation, Oak Ridge Housing Company. I believe the one that had that was, the main man was, use to own the Pittsburg ball team, Galbreath. Galbreath Brothers, John was the king pin of them. they operated the dormitories at the time and did other work. They also did some of the maintenance of the housing. Later then, when that happened, that must have happened in early ’48 because it happened shortly after I came here, that work was taken over by Roane Anderson fully and they handled it from then on.
MR. JACKSON: On the…
MR. MCDOWELL: Ed Boone was one of the men Galbreath had here. Jim Moore, Jim Moore. Jim’s still here. 
MR. JACKSON: On the commercial property, do you recall what the basis of rental was on commercial property when you came?
MR. MCDOWELL: The basis?
MR. JACKSON: How they established rent?
MR. MCDOWELL: That was, that commercial thing, in the very early time and still at the time of ’47 when I came here, they were still renting a commercial piece of property with the use of what they called a license agreement. It was subject to a 30 day cancellation. It was astounding how they were able and why people would want to continue to operate under a 30 day cancelable document, but they did. Of course, this was one of the things that the commercial people were quite concerned about. But again, they were well aware of the fact that if they were in quarters and lots of times they would want improvements done, and sometimes those improvements, if I remember correctly, were performed by the government through Roane Anderson, but many times they wanted to make improvements of their own, and some of them did. And they knew, they were pretty well aware of the fact that the government as such couldn’t just reach in and kick them out, if they were preforming anywise near in a logical manner. Most all of them were. I think back, I was talking to Tom Harvey the other day. Tom runs the Harvey Furniture. He was in the furniture business when I came here in ’47. He had some hutments down there near what is now the intersection of the Turnpike and Illinois. Later he came up to the old cafeteria and his different other locations, but the main function of all of those commercial properties were handled under a 30 day cancelable license agreement and most of the basis for the rental were primarily on a percentage basis. 
MR. JOHNSON: Percentage of profit? Percentage of sales?
MR. MCDOWELL: This finally developed, this developed into gross receipts.
MR. JOHNSON: Gross receipts.
MR. MCDOWELL: Gross receipts was what it was in the beginning. It got to be pretty difficult, particularly as things were changing and they changed an awful lot in those few years, particularly after Tennessee Eastman left and they combined the plants with other people. They were still other people; their names don’t come to me now. There were companies that wanted X-10 and all, but that doesn’t make any difference. But as things changed, people become more aware of the situation. As to whether it was comparable with others, of course some of them that ran it here, ran it in Knoxville. Well one of the most important things that came about was the business of how this rental business would be based. The gross receipts, I remember distinctly that this was one of the biggest problems that we had when I first came here, of getting that oriented, getting the rental onto a more acceptable basis and the next most important thing was the tenure of these agreements. They wanted long leases. This was a most important thing that came along. Finally, I suppose was one of the steps that was taken by the government that eventually led to the actual sale, you know. The thing that promoted the sale first was the churches. You know at that time, I think I recall, there were 32 different denominations, churches in here at that time. There were about three or four denominations, Methodists, Catholics, were two I remember distinctly because they used to be in my office two to three times a week, insisting on getting a lease. They wanted to buy, but we finally gave them a long term lease on which they could build churches. That was the one of the first steps of actually getting to the sale.
MR. JACKSON: This was about when? Do you recall?
MR. MCDOWELL: Well, I know that the churches had these leases prior to the time of legislation, so it must have been ’52, somewhere along that. It might have been as early as ’51. 
MR. JACKSON: You mentioned on the commercial stuff a couple of things. One was the tenure and the other was the matter of gross receipts. You said there was a problem of getting these on a more acceptable kind of basis. Did they change then from the gross receipts?
MR. MCDOWELL: I think we then began to go on a flat rental on some of the smaller, different phases of business that you couldn’t hardly, well, there’s every phase of business you almost mention that wasn’t really susceptible to the gross receipts percentage. At that time, they, Roane Anderson was bringing in people who were familiar with rentals of real estate. A boy by the name of White they brought in here and other was Arthur Harris. Arthur was brought down from New York, with really qualified people along that line to help to phase this thing down and get it into more workable places.
MR. JOHNSON:  Did the commercial establishments, the people who were running these commercial things, did they want to get off the gross receipts percentage…
MR. MCDOWELL: Yes.
MR. JOHNSON: …and down to a different base?
MR. MCDOWELL: They thought, or get it reduced, you know. There was always a big question about what…
MR. JOHNSON: What percentage it’s going to be.
MR. MCDOWELL: Yeah. Then too it took a lot of administration, auditing of these things and another was a very complicated, or not so complicated, but it took a lot of doing, a lot of work to check their gross receipts and to determine what the correct rental was. 
MR. JACKSON: There was only X amount of building space. How was it determined who got the space? Do you recall?
MR. MCDOWELL: I think in the earlier time, really, I just can’t recall about this. Later, proposals were submitted, but that came a good deal later. When, particularly when it would seem there were quarters available that, but most often I believe it was just someone came in and wanted to utilize that space and it was, they would negotiate with that particular one. 
MR. JACKSON: So Roane Anderson was doing that?
MR. MCDOWELL: Oh, yes. They had commercial reality department over there, and they again, when I stop to think back about how all these things were handled, really it was marvelously handled. They, sure there were some inequities and all, but by and large, it was really performed really well. Of course, Roane Anderson used to get lambasted on every hand about everything, but they did perform real well. Management Services later performed real well. But the other function that came along with the letting of the commercial was another important thing in the sale business. Most of these buildings such as in Jackson, these centers such as Jackson Square, all the other neighborhoods, they had fire walls in those buildings and most of them were divided in that manner, and appraised by the FHA, by that unit, and sold. Most of them now like down here at Elm Grove, that community neighborhood center, the price was placed on that and they formed a corporation. People who were in there bought it. Some places, Pine Valley, I recall one, don’t know, don’t remember just why, but they couldn’t get together as a corporation and they wanted to, one individual wanted to buy it all, or several individuals wanted to buy it all. I remember that one we drew lots on. 
MR. JACKSON: Just drew lots.
MR. MCDOWELL: Yes. I remember I conducted the drawing…
MR. JACKSON: Interesting.
MR. MCDOWELL: …because the one of them is still here in town and operating, and he was one of them that was at the drawing. He lost it. The druggist, Phil Bass was fortunate enough to get the first right of refusal.
MR. JACKSON: This is what, early ’50’s? 
MR. MCDOWELL: No, this had to be ’56, in the sale. I’m talking about right of sale. That was after, that would be a little later than that in the actual sale.
MR. JOHNSON: You said, getting back to the housing thing for a minute, when the houses were offered for sale, most of the people who were living in the houses, the people who got first chance, did, in fact, buy them.
MR. MCDOWELL: Yes. A large percentage…
MR. JOHNSON: A high percentage.
MR. MCDOWELL: …did, and there were a few houses that were not occupied at that time. If I remember right we set a specific date and whoever was in the house as of that date, why, he had the right of purchase. Of course again, people knew that this was coming up and there again, the assignment of housing was a tremendous thing to handle, to keep away from, well, favoritism. The one house that finally had to go through all of the priorities was the house that’s up at the intersection of Outer Drive and East Drive, and California, right at the top of California. It’s a D house. That one simmered down to the priority of the man who had been in Oak Ridge longest, who was interested in buying it. It was a policeman, and he got it.
MR. JACKSON: So it began at the top with priority such as people in it, and it was just a whole series on down to…
MR. MCDOWELL: There weren’t too many like that. There was a second priority. I believe the second priority was any resident. I don’t just recall. I’ve got it somewhere in my records. I still got some records, but I haven’t looked at them since. They were my personal records that I had. But in a duplex for instance, there are two people in a duplex, the one that had been there the longest, he had the priority. Now he had 30 days to conclude if he wanted it. If he didn’t, the other man could have a shot at it. If neither of them wanted it, why then it was just laid aside until a little later. It was put up, I believe the next one was any resident, I’ve forgotten just how long, but it had to be fined down to a pretty detailed point to keep from any favoritism and stuff like that. It was all handled without pretty much criticism of any way. Of course, there had always been the argument about who got the better housing and all that, better location, but…
MR. JACKSON: Do you recall when you came here, what was Oak Ridge like? How did it strike you?
MR. MCDOWELL: Well, I remember going, what was then known as the Overlook up there on Kerr Hollow Road because they were trying to, people who were interested in might coming here, the one or two individuals, they were trying to sell the idea to me. We went up there and, of course, all the lights were on at that time. You didn’t pay your light bill, it was just all furnished so it was lit up like a country church every night until 10, 11, 12 o’clock, but I knew by seeing things in the daytime that there were so many houses vacant. At that time, a lot of people from Tennessee Eastman were moving out and going back, but they had in the streets, of course, a lot of the streets had been paved by then. I wasn’t here in the day when they talk about the mud and all this.
MR. JACKSON: Boardwalks gone?
MR. MCDOWELL: No. They weren’t all gone. Many of the boardwalks were here yet, particularly the boardwalks that cut across these areas to the schools, where these youngsters walked to school, and then walked to the shopping centers to do shopping. No, a good many of those boardwalks were taken up, and sidewalks provided in many locations after I came here. 
MR. JACKSON: I’m sorry. I interrupted you. I had asked you what it was like when you came, and then I just…
MR. MCDOWELL: Well, there was much consideration, as I said, as to what was going to happen to Oak Ridge, whether it was going to go up or down. A lot of people were leaving with the idea that it was all over, it would become a ghost town. Others were well aware of, were willing to take a chance, you know that were in business. They stayed on and were anxious to stay on, but it wasn’t very long until that began to get out of that phase pretty fast, particularly when they began to talk about sale of property and incorporation. Incorporation took the minds of people off a lot of other things because there was tremendous concern about that. The Oak Ridge Advisory Town Council had been elected for several years. They were purely an advisory body, had no power at all, but through them there was a lot of, well, the people had a voice in the things. There were meetings, after meetings, after meetings to discuss not only the boundaries, for instance, what Oak Ridge would, the city would be, the geographical. Of course the AEC had designated the geographical lines that would take in just the city proper, but the people were much concerned. They wanted it to take in the plants.
MR. JOHNSON: Did the AEC finally go along with that idea?
MR. MCDOWELL: Yes, because that was the, the vote was taken on this along the way. I remember the Census Bureau was called in here to take a poll of a lot of things, as to whether they wanted to incorporate, and whether they wanted this or that, you know. I forgot what the questions they had. They had a whole bunch of questions.
MR. JACKSON: This was about when?
MR. MCDOWELL: Oh, gee. It had to be in ’48 or ’49, where they, I don’t know if I have any information on the Census Bureau coming in here, but I recall where they had their offices and they were down there where, you know where the Texaco Station is at the Downtown Center is now, that just closed. They had what they call the commercial market, or something. The AEC went in there and provided, had a cafeteria that was there and renovated some of it and built this into a Municipal Market, I believe they called it, to provide space for the grocery stores, kind of a shopping center, you know.
MR. JACKSON: On the boundary question, the boundaries had been established by the AEC before you came.
MR. MCDOWELL: No.
MR. JACKSON: After you came.
MR. MCDOWELL: After I came, as for the Oak Ridge itself. It was geographical limits. No, that was done in ’48, ’49, ’50, along there.
MR. JACKSON: People wanted the plants included for what reason?
MR. MCDOWELL: Well, of course they, the primary reason was at that time, was eventually they would, they thought if they were incorporated, they thought they would tax those plants. They thought that because the AEC did this, excluded them, they did it for that reason, but you couldn’t make them believe it. They prevailed on the things.
MR. JACKSON: I wonder why the AEC did originally exclude them.
MR. MCDOWELL: I think it was primarily to get the city to set here by itself, and not to take in all of that because the AEC had visions and really the demand for sewer lines, or water lines and different proportions of that could get to be a big problem and has been, to some degree, since then. But every once in a while they get to talking about sale of those plants to private, so maybe these people were right after all of getting it into that there.
MR. JACKSON: When you came here, people who had been here were certainly long accustomed to things like security measures and the gates, and so on. The ones we’ve talked to at any rate have no sense of this being restrictive. How did it strike you coming in it new?
MR. MCDOWELL: Of having the fence and the gates?
MR. JACKSON: Yeah. 
MR. MCDOWELL: Well, of course that was a selling point and people did, I mean, none of them locked their doors, at that time, because they felt safe. You get, it’s much different today. They all did, not all of them, but most of them, but that business of opening up the gates were really a big question. Well, when it was first proposed, well gee, the man must be crazy. Jack Franklin was the guy that proposed it. Jack was brought here as manager of Oak Ridge Operations, from TWA [Trans World Airlines], Kansas City. Jack was, well I don’t know whether Jack really thought of the idea or not, or whether somebody in Washington was saying, “Now Jack, this is one of the first responsibilities. Get that town open down there. Get those gates open and disregard those fences,” because that was really a tough one to crack. Took a good long time to do it. That was early. That was started early in ’47, ’48.
MR. JOHNSON: Took it until ’49.
MR. MCDOWELL: It was early in ’48, is when this began to function about…
MR. JOHNSON: It didn’t open up until ’49.
MR. MCDOWELL: It was ’49? 
MR. JOHNSON: Yeah.
MR. MCDOWELL: I didn’t recall. It took quite a little bit of doing.
MR. JACKSON: It took doing…
MR. MCDOWELL: I got to help write papers myself on what’s involved here, because I came out of our shop down here. What’s involved, supposing we open the gates? What’s going to happen? We had to write up papers and I guess about a dozen papers. That was a favored past time, writing staff papers...
MR. JACKSON: What happened at the gates?
MR. MCDOWELL: On everything… But it was, that was another thing though, it was one of the important steps of getting to, back to a normal situation.
MR. JACKSON: What kinds of considerations were there about what might happen? That is, these papers, what did they see as possibilities? 
MR. MCDOWELL: Oh, gee. I don’t know. I can’t recall right now. Of course, you know if you had visitors, you had to get passes for them. Well, I suppose that there had been a lot of comments like, about that, that people could keep their mother-in-laws from coming and one another like that, refusing to get passes, but really, I think, the safety, the idea of that, people outsiders that weren’t undesirable people coming in. I think was one of the primary things that people had on their minds. From a safety view point, I guess is what I’d have to say on it. That’s all I recall at this time.
MR. JACKSON: Well, I was just curious. 
MR. MCDOWELL: But, gee, when you stop and think about some of the, and I hadn’t thought. I’ve thought more about it sitting here talking to you fellows than I have for years. No kidding.
MR. JACKSON: You came here, you moved into a house.
MR. MCDOWELL: I moved into this house.
MR. JACKSON: Into this house.
MR. MCDOWELL: Yeah. We better not talk about it too much if my wife happens here. We had, there were plenty of D houses available. We had one son. Then the houses were all assigned on the size of the family, but because of my position I guess I could have… But because of my position is exactly why I didn’t, after I got this house. I could have gotten any kind of one at that time, but later they began to tighten up. You still had to sign on them on, because that again was our responsibility in my office to write these policies for Roane Anderson to follow. They were, well, out here after we finally got the yard mowed, there was a tennis table that had been thrown out there, and I’ve forgotten what else, but one or two people who had lived in this house hadn’t taken very good care of it. It wasn’t in the best of shape, but it happened to be in a location that was closed to the people that were interested in me coming here. They were the ones that really insisted I be assigned this house, but later, George Miller, for instance, who became the Director of Safety in our office, handling of the police advisory to the Roane Anderson. All of those fellows came in a little later. They got D houses, chose them of their own free will, and went around to look at them. But really when I came it was a little bit different situation. This is a C house, three bedrooms. It fit our needs as far as that’s concerned. My wife speaks about it every once in a while. Different friends have a D house, a F house. I said, you’d just have that much more to take care of. So, after you get to a little higher mark in your age, that’s more important than having enough room to play ball in or something.
MR. JACKSON: Would you say when you came here, that the AEC was committed…
[End of Interview]