The Atomic City Corridor

A small town called Atomic City sits about forty miles west of Idaho Falls, directly adjacent to the Idaho National Laboratory boundary. It took the name Atomic City in nineteen fifty, soon after the federal government's nuclear site was begun on the plain to the north. The town never grew much, its population today hovering around forty people, but its name captures something essential about the transformation of this corner of Idaho in the postwar decades.

Idaho Falls itself became an unofficial company town for the laboratory, its motels, restaurants, and supply chains feeding a workforce of several thousand scientists, engineers, and technicians. The laboratory today employs more than six thousand people, making it the largest employer in eastern Idaho and the economic engine that has kept Idaho Falls from following the agricultural-decline trajectory of so many high-desert towns.