Editing Fermilab (section)

==History==<!-- This section is linked from [[Michael Witherell]] -->
[[File:Fermilab Robert Rathbun Wilson Hall 2011.jpg|thumb|Robert Rathbun Wilson Hall]]

[[Weston, DuPage County, Illinois|Weston, Illinois]], was a community next to [[Batavia, Illinois|Batavia]] voted out of existence by its village board in 1966 to provide a site for Fermilab.<ref>
{{cite web|author      = Fermilab|url         = http://history.fnal.gov/exhibit/weston.html|title       = Before Weston|access-date  = November 25, 2009|url-status     = live|archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20100305000103/http://history.fnal.gov/exhibit/weston.html|archive-date = March 5, 2010}}</ref>

The laboratory was founded in 1969 as the '''National Accelerator Laboratory''';<ref>{{cite news |last1=Kolb |first1=Adrienne |title=The founding of Fermilab |url=https://cerncourier.com/a/the-founding-of-fermilab/ |access-date=February 25, 2021 |publisher=Cern Courier |date=May 19, 2017}}</ref> it was renamed in honor of [[Enrico Fermi]] in 1974. The laboratory's first director was [[Robert Rathbun Wilson]], under whom the laboratory opened ahead of time and under budget. Many of the sculptures on the site are of his creation. He is the namesake of the site's high-rise laboratory building, whose unique shape has become the symbol for Fermilab and which is the center of activity on the campus.

After Wilson stepped down in 1978 to protest the lack of funding for the lab, [[Leon M. Lederman]] took on the job. It was under his guidance that the original accelerator was replaced with the Tevatron, an accelerator capable of colliding [[proton]]s and [[antiproton]]s at a combined energy of 1.96 TeV. Lederman stepped down in 1989 and remained director emeritus until his death. The science education center at the site was named in his honor.