NAL to Become Enrico Fermi Laboratory in 1972
Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, announced April 29th, 1969, the Commission will name the National Accelerator Laboratory, now under construction near Chicago, in honor of the late Dr. Enrico Fermi.
Formal dedication and naming of the Enrico Fermi Laboratory will not take place until major construction work has been completed and the facility is in operation, probably in the fall of 1972. (Archivist's note: The Dedication actually occurred on May 11, 1974.)
Dr. Seaborg, in announcing the AEC's plans said: "It is particularly fitting that we honor Dr. Fermi in this manner, for in so doing we further acknowledge his many contributions to the progress of nuclear science, particularly his work on nuclear processes.
"Enrico Fermi was a physicist of great renown who contributed in a most significant way to the defense and welfare of his adopted land and to the enhancement of its intellectual well-being. His greatest achievement, the first sustained nuclear chain reaction, took place in a small laboratory in Chicago. It seems singularly appropriate, therefore, that the Federal Government recognize the memory of a man who was at the forefront of science in his day by naming in his honor a laboratory near Chicago -- a laboratory which will have a major international impact on our understanding of the basic structure of matter."