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Article: 'The TNT area': ; From explosive beginnings to a magnet for wildlife
- Article from:
- Charleston Gazette
- Article date:
- October 9, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2009 Charleston Gazette. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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POINT PLEASANT - Visitors to West Virginia's McClintic Wildlife
Management Area see a gently rolling landscape covered with brush,
trees, croplands and ponds.
Hidden within that landscape are artifacts of a far less nature-
friendly past.
From 1942 to 1945, the land now frequented by hunters, anglers
and wildlife watchers served a vital role in America's war effort.
World War II was in full swing, and the U.S. Army needed explosives.
They got them by building the West Virginia Ordnance Works, an 8,323-
acre ammunition manufacturing facility, on the current McClintic
site.
At its peak, the sprawling $45 million plant churned out an
average of 250,000 tons of highly explosive trinitrotoluene ...