Farms by Family Name and Site Number
Click on the map to see the locations of the original Fermilab farms
On December 16, 1966, Weston, Illinois was announced as the winner of a national competition of states proposing to be the location of the National Accelerator Laboratory, a 200 GeV high-energy physics reserach tool. In 1967 the state of Illinois began to acquire the real estate, including the farms of the site and the small subdivision of Weston. According to the terms of the proposal, the state purchased the land and donated it to the Atomic Energy Commission for the construction and operation of the Laboratory. In this process fifty-six farm families were displaced from their homesteads, as well as the residents of Weston. The map on this page shows the original locations of the farms around the site. Today the roads are somewhat different from when this map was drawn in 1968 and many farmhouses have been moved, but much of the site remains unchanged
DUSAF, a group of architectural-engineering firms, hired by founding Director Robert R. Wilson in 1967 to assist with the design of the laboratory, evaluated the existing properties on the site and numbered them. DUSAF gave each farm a site number to identify its early location on their maps. These site numbers are still used for practical reasons and are part of each site's Fermilab identity. The links below include photographs of the farmhouses in the orginal settings.
Fermilab has preserved and maintained many of the farmhouses, which most serve as housing for visiting researchers. Many of the barns from the farm sites are in their original settings around 6,800 acres of the Lab. Most of the Village of Weston houses were left in their original settngs but some were moved, and all served as offices of the Laboratory between 1968 and 1974. Later, most of these offices were set up in the new Robert Rathburn Wilson Hall.
Farm Families
Farm Sites