Nevada Test Site, Japanese Village, Area 4, Yucca Flat, 4-04 Road near Rainier Mesa Road, Mercury, Nye County, NV

Significance: The Japanese Village has been determined to be eligible to the National Register of Historic Places because of its association with historical and scientific events of exceptional importance. These light-frame wooden structures were constructed as analogs to typical Japanese houses for Operation BREN (Bare Reactor Experiment, Nevada), which was part of Project Ichiban. Project Ichiban was established to investigate radiation fields from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. The wood frame structures were built for dosimetry experiments designed to determine the shielding effects of traditional Japanese houses. These investigations allowed researchers to calculate radiation doses received by survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs. At the time the dosimetry studies were completed, the results comprised the largest single set of data available on the shielding effects of Japanese housing and by extrapolation, nuclear radiation on human beings. Today, the site provides a direct link between the U.S. nuclear testing program and the only combat use of atomic weapons.
Survey number: HABS NV-27
Building/structure dates: 1962 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: 1994 Subsequent Work