The home of the Burlington Nuclear Laboratories was built in 1953 with financial help from the North Carolina textile company Burlington Industries. It housed the first nuclear reactor outside of the... The home of the Burlington Nuclear Laboratories was built in 1953 with financial help from the North Carolina textile company Burlington Industries. It housed the first nuclear reactor outside of the federal Atomic Energy Commission. After some intermittent updates to the original reactor, an expansion of the building in 1973 also included an upgrade to the current Pulstar reactor, and the new building was renamed Burlington Engineering Laboratories.