The Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) was to be a ring particle accelerator, proton-proton collider, and high-energy physics laboratory that was to have had a ring circumference of fifty-four miles. It was initially suggested in 1982 by a National Reference Designs Study with its design completed and construction approved by 1987.

North Carolina was considered as a possible location for the Superconducting Supercollider and a building site was chosen that extended the circular underground structure through areas in Durham, Granville, and Person counties. Out of the twenty-five possible locations that were considered, North Carolina was deemed the best nationally in terms of the most important site criterion: geology.

The North Carolina site proposal was submitted in August 1987 and chosen in December 1987 by a committee from the National Academy of Sciences as one of seven of the final sites possible in the United States for construction of the project. The eleven billion dollar project was awarded, however, to a site in Texas that was advocated by then Vice President George H. W. Bush. In 1988, Waxahachie, Texas was selected as the location best suited for the Superconducting Super Collider. Construction of the Superconducting Super Collider was begun near Waxahachie, Texas, but the project was cancelled by Congress in 1993.