Nuclear Reactor Building, North Carolina State College, Raleigh, N.C.
Did you know Raleigh is the home of the nation’s “First Temple of the Atom”? You can find out why this week on Flashback Friday as we visit the Nuclear Reactor Building on the NC State campus.
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Nuclear Reactor Building
This is the first facility of its kind to be devoted exclusively to peacetime development of the atom. The unique one-story building which houses the reactor also contains the training and research laboratories, and an observation room.This is the first college-owned reactor and is open to the public without restriction.
The R-1 reactor was the first non-government-run nuclear reactor in the world and the first designed, built, and operated by an academic institution. Design and construction began in 1950, and was completed in 1955.
In this ca 1955 photo the brand new Nuclear Reactor Building is ready to split its first atom.
“The First Temple of the Atom”
National attention was brought to NC State in 1955 when the first nuclear reactor in the world devoted solely to the peacetime application of nuclear fission was installed in a building on campus specifically designed for the purpose.
Nicknamed the ‘first temple of the atom’ by the Associated Press, the nuclear reactor building, later renamed Burlington Nuclear Laboratories, was designed in 1951 by Raleigh architect G. Milton Small, Jr. It was his first major commission following the establishment of his own firm in 1949, and the first of his several subsequent projects for NC State.
The site chosen for the reactor building was an open, unpaved plaza on central campus, adjacent to the Diesel Engineering Building. At the time, a large concrete fountain, which had been built in 1947 as a cooling  tower for the diesel engines, occupied the site.
The futuristic-looking concrete fountain cooled the water which cooled the diesel engines located in the nearby Diesel Building. It was well over 20 feet tall.
(Note to readers: the structure seen in the background is not the Diesel Building. Anybody care to guess what that building is and what later replaced it; and where the Diesel Building itself is located?)
Construction of the Nuclear Reactor Building began with the installation of the R-1 reactor. Below, the steel framework of the building and its cooling tower takes shape.
The reactor sits in the center of a room that is 8 feet below ground level, 60 feet in diameter, and 35 feet high.
Here is the control panel which operated the reactor.
At the dedication of the Nuclear Reactor Building in 1955 Gov. Luther Hodges himself takes the controls.
This 1960s video features technicians operating the R-1 nuclear reactor. (Run time 6 minutes. Courtesy NCSU Libraries Special Collections Research Center)
Curiously, in November 1963, as a condition of maintenance, 60 gallons of anti-freeze were poured into the reactor’s cooling tower to keep the 250 gallons of water in the tower from freezing during the winter.
The nuclear reactor building was enlarged in 1973, at which time the name was changed from Burlington Nuclear Laboratories to Burlington Nuclear Engineering Laboratories.
Nowadays nuclear studies at NC State University include training of nuclear reactor operators, methods of power generation using nuclear science, and the medical and industrial uses of radiation.
This mid-1960s aerial view shows Burlington Labs and the adjacent diesel cooling fountain. The oddball campus landmark was demolished in 1972 to make way for a three-story addition to Burlington Labs. The rest of the plaza was later transformed into the Gardner Arboretum in the mid-1970s.
Our Flashback Friday photochrome postcard this week was printed by Colourpicture Publishers of Boston, MA.
Colourpicture Publishers  (1938-1969)
Boston and Cambridge, MAA major publisher and printer of linen view-cards of the United States. They later went on to publish photochromes and small spiral bound picture booklets under the name trade name Plastichrome in the 1950’s.
“Flashback Friday†is a weekly feature of Goodnight, Raleigh! in which we showcase vintage postcards depicting our historic capital city. We hope you enjoy this week end treat!
12/05/2014
The building in the background is the Zoology building which was demolished in the mid-50s and replaced by Mann Hall in 64. The Diesel Building was just west of the Zoology building.
12/05/2014
Part of the control panel for the reactor (pictured in the article) is now in the collection of the North Carolina Museum of History.
12/17/2014
Great find! I visited the reactor in the 90’s, and I loved the sign on the front of the building that said: “If alarm sounds: RUN!”.