Mound Cold War Discovery Center

From 1948–2003, the scientific work of Mound Laboratory was so top secret that some remains classified to this day. Named for the neighboring Adena earthwork—one of the two largest conical mounds in eastern North America—this government facility revolutionized Cold War, Nuclear Age, and Space Race history.

As the nation’s first Atomic Energy Commission site constructed after World War II, Mound Laboratory continued the work of the storied Dayton Project. By transforming obscure locales into laboratories—a seminary, warehouses, an opulent playhouse—the Dayton Project, part of the larger Manhattan Project, produced the trigger for the atomic bomb. During the Space Race, Mound technology such as Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) launched America into the final frontier. 

Time and again, Daytonians have proved themselves masters of research and development, and Mound Laboratory would become yet another chapter in the city’s world-changing history.