Gilbert P. Church papers
Creation: 1943-1945Abstract
Gilbert P. Church (1910-1993) was a civil engineer and the field project manager for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company at the Hanford Site during the Manhattan Project. His papers relate to the construction by DuPont for the United States government of the Hanford Engineer Works plutonium plant near Pasco, Washington.
Dates
- Creation: 1943-1945
Creator
- Church, Gilbert P., 1910-1993 (Person)
Extent
12 item(s)
Biographical Note
Gilbert P. Church (1910-1993) was a civil engineer and the field project manager for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company at the Hanford Site during the Manhattan Project.
Church joined the DuPont Company in 1933, where he helped organize construction projects in Delaware, New Jersey, and Louisiana. In 1939, he was appointed assistant construction superintendent for a smokeless powder plant in Memphis, Tennessee, and later worked as project manager in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Charleston, West Virginia, Hartford, Illinois, and Rosemount, Minnesota.
In 1943, the DuPont Company selected Church to lead their Manhattan Project efforts. Church, along with Major Franklin T. Matthias and A.E.S. Hall surveyed sites in Washington, Oregon, California, and California before choosing Hanford as the site for the world's first full-scale nuclear production reactor. Church was assigned Project Manager of the Hanford site, where he helped supervise the construction of project facilities and living quarters for the site's 50,000 workers.
After the war, Church continued to work for DuPont on various construction projects until his retirement in 1974.
Scope and Contents
The Gilbert P. Church (1910-1993) papers relate to the construction by E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company for the United States government of the Hanford Engineer Works plutonium plant near Pasco, Washington. They include details on the construction for the plant, a notebook on the "history of the transportation department" at Hanford, newspaper clippings on Hanford and other nuclear plants, reports on atomic energy to DuPont Company stockholders, correspondence to Acting Secretary of War, reports on Hanford, a facility audit, and printed material.
Access Restrictions
No restrictions on access; this collection is open for research.
Language of Materials
English
Subjects
Related Names
Subject
- E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company (Organization)
- Manhattan Project (U.S.) (Organization)
Finding Aid & Administrative Information
- Title:
- Gilbert P. Church papers
- Date:
- 1974
- Description rules:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description:
- English
- Script of description:
- Latin
Revision Statements
- 2021: Ashley Williams
Repository Details
Repository Details
Part of the Manuscripts and Archives Repository
