EDITOR’S NOTE: Portions of this article were originally published on Feb. 9, 2022. It has been updated with additional information.

IDAHO FALLS – If 26-year-old Navy Seabee Richard Legg and Army Specialists John Byrnes, 22, and Richard McKinley, 27, had known what was going to happen when they arrived at SL-1 for the first working day of the New Year, they might still be around to talk about it.

It was Jan. 3, 1961, and America was at the height of the Cold War. The launch of Sputnik three years prior had ushered in a new era of scientific discovery while intensifying relations between the warring nations. Scientists were searching for better ways to harness the atom for nuclear power generation and for use as weapons.

Idaho was one of the places where the sole focus of nuclear research

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