The Site Contest for Fermilab

JAN 01, 1989

More than 20 years ago 46 states fought to become the home of the largest particle accelerator of the era, the 200‐BeV machine. The AEC decision has been haunted by political questions ever since.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881203

Catherine L. Westfall

On 10 November the Department of Energy announced that the Superconducting Super Collider will be located on the Blackland Prairie corn and cotton fields around Waxahachie, Texas. The decision ended a competition entered by 25 states more than a year earlier. The contest for the SSC was reminiscent of way the site for Fermilab was chosen in 1966. Indeed, the procedure invented for selecting Fermilab was copied for the SSC, right down to the preliminary run‐off refereed by a panel appointed by the National Academy of Sciences and the visits by a government team to the final few sites in the competition. Even the complaints from local citizens and the rumors of political influence that were rife during the Fermilab competition had their counterparts in the SSC contest.

References

1. For a more detailed account, see C. Westfall, PhD dissertation, Michigan State U. (1988).
This paper had its roots in an earlier paper by L. Hoddeson, Soc. Stud. Sci. 13, 1 (1983).
2. Atomic Energy Commission, “Wide Distribution Shown in AEC List of Proposals for 200 BeV Accelerator,” press release, 9 July 1965. J. T. Ramey to G. T. Seaborg and others, 23 July 1965, files of G. T. Seaborg, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.
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More about the Authors

Catherine L. Westfall. Lyman Briggs School, Michigan State University.