Shippingport: The World's First Civilian Atomic Power Plant

Beaver County, formed in eighteen hundred from Washington and Allegheny counties, has long been shaped by its waterways, first for commerce and later for heavy industry. But its most historically significant site may be the small community of Shippingport, on the Ohio River, where the world's first full-scale atomic power station devoted entirely to civilian needs began producing power in nineteen fifty-seven and was formally opened in nineteen fifty-eight.

The Shippingport Atomic Power Station was built by Westinghouse Electric for the Atomic Energy Commission and Duquesne Light Company. It demonstrated that nuclear energy could generate electricity for ordinary homes and businesses, fulfilling President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace vision. The plant ran until nineteen eighty-two and was subsequently decommissioned and dismantled, the first large reactor to be decommissioned in United States history. The spot that helped launch the civilian nuclear age now sits quietly along the Ohio.