Excerpt: The Texas Superconducting Super Collider would have dwarfed CERN’s LHC, according to reports. It was designed as an enormous underground ring complex situated close to Waxahachie and had it been allowed to go forward, would have been considered the most energetic particle accelerator in the world. The project’s construction commenced in the early ‘90s, but only 14 miles of tunnel were bored-out prior to the sunsetting of the whole thing.
We could have had CERN, but we were short sighted and tight-assed.
This is all from recollection, but --
The other site in the running was adjacent to Fermilab in Batavia, IL. It would have cost much less to build there, because it would have used the existing ring as a pre-accelerator, and the human capital necessary was already in the vicinity. Not only was it going to be more costly to construct in Texas, it would be more costly to maintain as well; I recall something about the insect population in Texas being much more detrimental to the concrete.
This was all being planned and organized in the 1980s, and I think Bush being Vice President (and then President through 92) may have had something to do with it going to Texas.
The way I remember it as well.