ARCO - On a cold winter day in 1951, Walter Zinn and a group of scientists met in a small nuclear reactor 50 miles west of Idaho Falls to conduct an experiment that would change the modern world forever.

It was five days before Christmas, and Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were at their height.

"At that time, the Soviets claimed everything the United States (did with nuclear power) was about weapons. We didn't have a peaceful bone in our bodies," INL spokesman Don Miley says of the Soviet's mentality.

But this experiment would prove that the U.S. was about more than nuclear weapons and that atomic energy could be used for peaceful means.

That day, Zinn and his group of scientists conducted the world's first usable electricity generated by a nuclear reactor.

"They lit four light bulbs, and the next day, lit the entire building," says Miley.

That's the story behind Experimental Breeder Reactor I, the first nuclear reactor built in Idaho on the National Reactor Testing Site. NRTS is the predecessor to what we know today as Idaho National Laboratories.

Testing at EBR-I confirmed that a reactor could create more fuel than it consumes and it paved the way for an even bigger scientific breakthrough with a different reactor four years later.

In July of 1955, another group of scientists attempted to use nuclear energy to power an entire town.

"They tied the generator into the power grid and flipped a switch. They were not in phase with the utility and fried seven miles of power lines," says Miley.

They tried it again several days later, and this time they succeeded.

"One or two nights later, they made sure they were in phase with the power company, switched over to BORAX-III, and for an hour in the middle of the night, they lit our central facilities area and Arco, Idaho."

Arco, located 20 miles northwest of EBR-I, became the first city in the world lit by atomic power on July 17, 1955.

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