In early 1942, the United States Army constructed the Pantex Ordinance Plant on a 16,000 acre wheat field near Amarillo, Texas. The plant was originally used to load and pack artillery shells during World War II. Pantex produced its first bomb less than ten months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor!

During the war years, employees lived in government housing and even had their own post office. When the war ended, the plant shut down and the employees were let go.

In 1949, the War Assets administration sold the land to Texas Technological College (Texas Tech). However, the land was available for government recall under the National Security Clause.

As the Cold War came to fruition, the Atomic Energy Commission reclaimed 10,000 acres in 1951 and began retrofitting the plant for nuclear weapons, high explosives and non-nuclear component assembly. Throughout the cold war, the plant played a significant role by assembling nuclear and thermonuclear warheads.

Currently, the plant disassembles weapons from the nation's stockpile, refurbishes aging nuclear weapons, and sanitizes hazardous components from nuclear weapons. The plant also provides storage for the plutonium pits extracted from disassembled nuclear weapons. It is stated that there are more than 13,000 plutonium pits on site. The area has been declared as a superfund site.

Podcast Written by Wes Meiss, Public History Student at the University of West Florida.