Manhattan Project by Goodyear Tire to encase the reactor. On 2 December 1942, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiated the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in an experimental reactor known as Chicago Pile-1. The point at which a reaction becomes self-sustaining became known as "going critical". Compton reported the success to Conant in Washington, D.C., by a coded phone call, saying, "The Italian navigator [Fermi] has just landed in the new world." In January 1943, Grafton's successor, Major Arthur V. Peterson, ordered Chicago Pile-1 dismantled and reassembled at Red Gate Woods, as he regarded the operation of a reactor as
Enrico Fermi High School Public Schools. In November 2012, a town-wide referendum to appropriate $103 million for additions and renovations to Enfield High School overwhelmingly passed by a 2:1 margin. As a result of the consolidation Enrico Fermi High School is planned to close, resulting in yearly savings of $2 million, which would pay for bonding for the renovations and additions to Enfield High School. The State of Connecticut also will provide more than 70% reimbursement for construction to Enfield High School, as well. Students from Enrico Fermi will move into the expanded high school after construction is finished in 2016-2017, with an expected