During 1942, amid dreadful war news as German submarines ravaged Atlantic shipping, the Japanese advanced in the Pacific, and the Germans pushed across North Africa, a scouting team in late May selected an East Tennessee site for the Manhattan Project because it offered TVA electric power, good cooling water, railroad service, sparse population, favorable terrain, and a nearby labor source. In September, General Groves drove the 15 miles from Elza to Gallaher Ferry and ordered the land acquired for the project. Nearly 1,000 families living on 59,000 acres of farmland were told to sell and move away immediately, and as land prices rose in surrounding counties, the average payment of about $45 an acre caused real hardship. Meanwhile, work began on new roads and fences, and on November 22, 1942, groundbreaking for the first Manhattan Project office building took place without fanfare.