James O. Word Collection

The United States Atomic Energy Commission was established in 1947 to foster (and control) the peace time development of atomic technologies after World War II but was later abolished by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974.

In 1963, the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union signed a Partial Test Ban Treaty, agreeing not to test nuclear devices in the atmosphere or underwater. The treaty did not prohibit the testing of nuclear weapons underground, and test sites were chosen in Mississippi to detonate them underground to discover if secret underground testing could be detected by seismographs.

“Project Dribble” was the Atomic Energy Commission effort to investigate potential test sites, and was later followed by “Project Salmon,” which involved the 1964 detonation of nuclear devices in the Tatum Salt Dome near Baxterville, Mississippi, nearly 30 miles southwest of Hattiesburg. Workers began clearing land for the site, a 1,400 acre area leased from the Tatum Lumber and Pecan Company, as early as 1961. Further testing continued in 1966, 1969, and 1970, though the site was decommissioned and dismantled in 1971.