Atoms for Peace

The sign's free world is doing careful work. Thirteen months earlier, on June 27, 1954, the Soviet plant at Obninsk had begun feeding nuclear power into a grid, so Arco was not first outright. What it could claim was to be the first town whose entire supply came from a reactor: for about an hour BORAX-III, a boiling-water test reactor out on the desert, sent Arco 500 of its 2,000 kilowatts. The timing had a purpose. An Argonne engineer later wrote that it was meant to match the Soviet presentation at the Geneva atomic conference that August.

What the plaque says

Atoms for Peace An important page in atomic history was written here on July 17, 1955, when the lights of Arco were successfully powered from atomic energy. Chosen by the Atomic Energy Commission as an experiment in the peaceful use of atomic power, Arco, Idaho became the first town in the free world to be served by electrical energy developed from the atom. The energy for this experiment was produced at the National Reactor Testing Station in the Arco desert southeast of here. 152 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Experimental Breeder Reactor I — 17 mi
  The reactor that lit four bulbs in 1951 also suffered the first accidental breeder meltdown, and two engines for a nuclear bomber sit outside.
• Craters of the Moon National Monument — 20 mi
  A geologist coined the name in 1923. A Boise taxidermist carried his dog across the lava and sold the place to a president.

More markers nearby

• Lost River — 16 mi
• Nuclear Reactors — 16 mi
• John Day's River — 19 mi
• Ghost Towns of Mackay, Idaho — 25 mi