{"id":217428,"date":"2026-05-02T02:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T02:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/217428\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T02:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T02:47:08","slug":"oak-ridge-history-museum-to-unveil-statue-of-manhattan-project-photographer-ed-westcott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/217428\/","title":{"rendered":"Oak Ridge History Museum to unveil statue of Manhattan Project photographer Ed Westcott"},"content":{"rendered":"

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OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (WATE) \u2014 A life-sized bronze statue is set to be unveiled at the Oak Ridge History Museum this weekend, honoring legendary photographer Ed Westcott. It is believed to be the first life-sized statue that represents a person in Oak Ridge\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Westcott was chosen by the U.S. government to take pictures of the Manhattan Project<\/a> and ended up producing thousands of negatives of the operation. His work is believed to be one of the most important visual records of the atomic age.<\/p>\n

In fact, the majority of Oak Ridge photos from that era were taken by Westcott. He also captured a historic photo of J. Robert Oppenheimer<\/a>, who is often referred to as the \u201cfather of the\u00a0atomic bomb,\u201d when he visited Oak Ridge in 1946.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the only one in the early days able to have a camera. Now, they did come along and tell the civilians that you could have a camera, but you could not photograph in the plant areas,\u201d said Don Hunnicutt, vice president of the Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association (ORHPA) and museum historian. \u201cHe was just the type of person that would be able to take a photograph and tell a story. If you look at his photographs, it would tell a story.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The museum chose to create the statue as a tribute to what Westcott has done to preserve Oak Ridge\u2019s legacy. In fact, the effort to get the statue started in 2013, before the museum opened in 2019. The $70,000 needed for the statue was raised over two years by the ORHPA with donations from ORNL Federal Credit Union, local businesses, and individuals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout those photographs, obviously, this museum wouldn\u2019t exist. Matter of fact, this museum displays a large collection of his photographs out of anywhere in the world. Probably he took 15,000 some odd images over a span of photography here. And it\u2019s just a record that shows actually what happened here,\u201d said Hunnicutt.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe was asked many times, \u2018What do you think about all this fame that you\u2019re getting?\u2019 And he said, \u2018I was just doing my job,\u2019 but really down inside, he was tickled to death that he was getting some notoriety from all his work that he had done over the years. He was still taking photographs up until the day he died,\u201d said Hunnicutt.<\/p>\n

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Hunnicutt, who is also Westcott\u2019s son-in-law, said he inspired him to start learning about local history. Hunnicutt explained that Westcott wanted to write a book about Oak Ridge, but he had a stroke that affected his ability to finish it on his own. So, his family got together and each person took a section of the book to complete under Westcott\u2019s supervision.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd with that book, I myself got a real interest in the Oak Ridge history, and I started scanning pictures that were available in the Oak Ridge Library. And then my wife got interested, and then we went to the National Archives in Maryland and Georgia, and scanned a lot of photographs,\u201d said Hunnicutt.<\/p>\n

The statue is 6-and-a-half feet tall and weighs around 250 pounds. The unveiling is set for 3 p.m. on Saturday outside the Oak Ridge History Museum on 102 Robertsville Road. Westcott\u2019s children are set to attend. Westcott died at 97 in March 2019.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WATE 6 On Your Side. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (WATE) \u2014 A life-sized bronze statue is set to be unveiled at the Oak Ridge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[80981,85713,85714,75,84,83,9,24,63,40611],"class_list":["post-217428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-bronze-statue","tag-ed-westcott","tag-history-museum","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-oak-ridge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}