History of Los Alamos, New Mexico
In north-central New Mexico lies the state’s smallest county, just 8 miles wide and 13 miles long. Los Alamos sits on a high, gently sloping plateau, cut by a series of steep, finger-like canyons. Early archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett named the plateau “pajarito,” which means little bird in Spanish.
Los Alamos is built upon a series of finger-like mesas that spread out from the Jemez mountains.
The county is bordered by the Jemez Mountains on the west and a labyrinth of 700- to 1,000-foot cliffs flanking the Rio Grande on the southeast. Elevations range from 5,400 feet at the river to 10,500 feet at the top of Caballo Mountain.
Volcanic activity sculpted much of the landscape of Los Alamos. Volcanic vents along the Rio Grande rift, a large crack in the earth’s crust, allowed lava to flow out like molasses and harden to form a level plain of black basalt. Meanwhile, the Jemez volcanic field to the west continued to grow, and the amount of gas-charged molten rock stored at shallow depths increased. Finally, the pressure mounted and explosive eruptions of silica-rich ash and pumice blew over a much of the United States. The overlying dome of the volcano collapsed, forming what is today the Valles Caldera National Preserve while the local ashflows solidified to create the orange and buff cliffs of volcanic tuff that make up Los Alamos.
Bandelier Tuff is hardened ash from the explosion of the Jemez volcano. The mesas upon which Los Alamos is built are made of tuff, basalt, and other volcanic materials.
Because the plateau lies over 6,000 feet in elevation, temperatures rarely exceed 90 degrees. However, temperatures in White Rock Canyon, with its tumble of black basalt, can soar much over that of the surrounding highlands. Lightning storms are common during the summer “monsoon” season. Average yearly precipitation is about 19 inches while the average winter snowfall is 14 in town and over 100 inches a year on Pajarito Mountain, the local ski hill.
Archaeologists believe the first Indians to arrive on the Pajarito Plateau were Keres speakers, who came from Arizona between 1175 and 1250 A.D. They built homes of volcanic tuff blocks where small groups of three or four families might live together. Some also lived in the natural caves of the canyon walls. Remains of these dwellings, usually from eight to twenty rooms, can be found all over the plateau. Members of Keresan-speaking pueblos such as Cochiti and others to the south and west of Los Alamos are thought to be the descendents of these early settlers.
Petroglyphs like this one can be found throughout the Pajarito Plateau.
Around 1300 A.D., a second migration of natives from the Four Corners area, including the spectacular towns of Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, moved onto the Pajarito Plateau. They introduced the Tewa language and constructed large community dwellings on the mesa tops, from one to four stories high with as many as 600 rooms. They also carved out artificial caves from the canyon walls to create multiple cliff dwellings.
Within 50 years of their arrival, the Tewas began to drift away. Drought and raids by Navajos, Utes, Apaches, and Comanches were the cause, according to the oral traditions of San Ildefonso and Santa Clara pueblos, home to Tewa speakers today. Archaeologists also cite a drop in average temperature, which shortened the growing season and caused food shortages. The movement, however, was gradual. By 1550, Indian settlers had abandoned the Pajarito Plateau for pueblos along the Rio Grande, where warmer temperatures and irrigation made farming easier. The natives would, however, return to the plateau to hunt and worship.
Remains of both Tewa and Keres-style dwellings can be seen today at Bandelier National Monument. A small ruin, often excavated by boys from the Los Alamos Ranch School, sits near the Los Alamos Historical Museum. In addition to their dwellings, the Indians left behind thousands of petroglyphs, carvings into rocks, which can be found throughout the canyons of the Pajarito Plateau.
More information on the prehistoric period of Los Alamos can be found in Los Alamos, New Mexico: A Survey to 1949; Sentinels on Stone, the Petroglyphs of Los Alamos; and A Guide to Bandelier National Monument, publications of the Los Alamos Historical Society. Please visit our shopping cart for information on these and other books about the natural and cultural history of Los Alamos.
As with many places in the west, the coming of the railroad to Northern New Mexico opened up the land that would become Los Alamos for settlement. In 1887, the “Chili Line” of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad commenced, skirting the Pajarito Plateau and crossing the river at Otowi, the north end of White Rock Canyon.
The Harold H. Brook homestead in Los Alamos. Brook's mother is standing on the porch.
After the surveyor-general completed a survey of the townships on the plateau, the land was ready for homesteading.
Hispanics who had already run cattle in the area staked out 160-acre farms, often building one-room log cabins to “prove up” their claims. The homesteaders generally used the cabins as summer homes, grazing their cattle on the cool plateau and retreating to the Rio Grande valley when winter came.
One of the homesteaders, Harold H. Brook, sold his land and buildings to the Los Alamos Ranch School soon after it began. Others lived on the plateau in harmony with the boys' school for its 25-year existence.
The federal government used its powers of eminent domain to take over the homesteads for the Manhattan Project in 1942. Many owners received some payment but some received none because they failed to make the 85-mile trek to the Sandoval County Courthouse each year to pay their property taxes.
The homesteaders received between $7 and $15 per acre while the Ranch School received $225 per acre. Concerned about the lack of fairness when this information was finally disclosed in 1961, homesteaders and their heirs petitioned the federal government for a just assessment. In 2004, Congress established a $10 million fund to pay the homesteaders’ descendents a fairer share for their land.
Romero Cabin before it was moved to the Los Alamos Historic District.
Today, the Romero cabin, relocated from Los Alamos National Laboratory to near Fuller Lodge in the 1980s, is the only remaining homesteaders cabin. The others that had survived burned during the Cerro Grande Fire in May 2000. The Los Alamos Historical Society is in the process of restoring the cabin with a grant from the state of New Mexico.
The Los Alamos Historical Society has publications with more information on the Homestead era, such as Los Alamos, New Mexico: A Survey to 1949. Please visit our shopping cart for more information.
Detroit businessman Ashley Pond started the Los Alamos Ranch School in 1917 to help boys become strong young men through a life of rigorous outdoor living and classical education. Plagued by bronchitis and other ailments as a child, Pond wanted to give youngsters a chance to improve their health away from polluted, urban environments.
Ranch School students on their horses in front of the Big House.
The school began with a few ranch buildings from the Harold H. Brook homestead and the newly constructed Big House, a two-story, upright log building which housed classrooms, a dining hall, and school offices. Later, screens were added to the wrap-around portal, and the boys slept on the porch year-round, no matter what the weather.
Director A.J. Connell molded the school into his image, one that eliminated the influence of coddling mothers and emphasized the outdoors, discipline, and solid academic preparation. Pond remained on the school’s board of directors until his death in 1933 but had no direct involvement with the school after the early years.
Connell recruited a faculty made up of mostly Ivy League and other elite Eastern college graduates who brought with them youth and enthusiasm. Head Master Lawrence Hitchcock gave his masters freedom to teach as they saw best. The curriculum was standard for college preparatory schools of the time, and high academic standards helped recruit boys from moderately wealthy families.
One way the Los Alamos school differed from other health schools at the time was its integration with Boy Scouts. Boys in the school belonged to Los Alamos Troop 22, the first mounted scout troop in the country and now one of the nation’s oldest continuous troops. Boys were divided into patrols, Piñon, Juniper, Fir and Spruce, by size and ability rather than age. The Boy Scout uniform was the Los Alamos Ranch School uniform, including shorts year-round.
Upon arrival at the school, each boy, ages 12 to 18, was assigned a horse. Every Monday, the boys spent afternoons working on community service projects such as trail building or improving the athletic facilities like the rifle range or tennis courts. Reports on the community work went home to parents along with academic grades and physical development scores.
Other afternoons were spent in sporting activities, swimming, fishing, hunting, hiking, basketball, tennis, horseback riding, and, in the winter, skating on Ashley Pond or skiing on Sawyers Hill. Students also had access to a woodworking shop and dark room as well as music lessons.
Boys from the school's summer camp take a pack trip in the Valles Caldera.
Camping trips into the surrounding mountains were frequent and well-remembered. The ins and outs of camping were as much a part of the ranch school curriculum as Latin and geometry. Meals were specially planned to meet the nutritional needs of growing boys, and the food was generally said to be excellent. Both masters and students recalled times they would be told to leave not just the table, but the school, if they did not eat everything on their plates.
In its 25 years, the school educated more than 600 boys, most of whom went on to successful careers. Some of the more prominent students include author Gore Vidal; Arthur and Robert Wood, former president and former general counsel, respectively, of Sears and Roebuck; and Roy Chapin, president of American Motors Corp.
On Dec. 7, 1942, a year to the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, A.J. Connell shared a letter from Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson with the students and faculty. The U.S. Army was taking over the school’s property in “the interests of the United States in the prosecution of the War…” Christmas holidays were canceled and a special schedule set up so the boys could complete the school year by February. The last four graduates, including Ashley Pond’s grandson, Theodore Church, received their diplomas on January 21, while bulldozers and mechanical diggers were already tearing up the mesa to make for the Manhattan Project. (Ranch School graduate Col. Whitney Ashbridge would become the commanding officer of Army post in Los Alamos.)
More information on the Ranch School era of Los Alamos can be found in book such as When Los Alamos Was a Ranch School and other publications from the Los Alamos Historical Society. Please visit our shopping cart for information on these and other books on the natural and cultural history of Los Alamos.
1940s Downtown Los Alamos
Los Alamos has a long and varied history. However, its uniqueness – and what it is best known for – comes from its role as the site for the development of the world’s first atomic bombs.
Los Alamos Laboratory, known as Project Y, was conceived during the early part of World War II. The United States wanted to build an atomic explosive to counter the threat posed by the German nuclear development program. The term Manhattan Project came about because the program began under the Manhattan Engineering District of the War Department.
Gen. Leslie Groves, military head of the project, and Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director, wanted the top-secret project to take place in an area that was isolated yet still accessible, a place with an adequate water supply, a readily available labor force, and a moderate climate. At the same time, Oppenheimer envisioned a laboratory with a beautiful setting that would inspire his scientists. He wanted to bring researchers that were scattered at various universities across the country together to discuss all aspects of the project.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project.
Contrary to the widely accepted myth, neither Oppenheimer nor Groves attend the Los Alamos Ranch School. However, Percival C. Keith, a member of the planning board for the government's Office of Scientific Research and Development, as well as the father of two Los Alamos Ranch School summer campers, proved instrumental in making the recommendation for Los Alamos. Col. Whitney Ashbridge, a graduate of the school, later became commander of the Army Post for the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer knew of Los Alamos because he had a ranch in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and had spent time horseback riding in the Jemez.
After touring the site, officials felt the Ranch School buildings would supply adequate housing for the estimated 30 scientists who would work on the project. Little did anyone at the time realize the town would grow to more than 6,000 residents during the war, causing constant shortages of housing and water, among other hardships.
New residents of Los Alamos rode the train into tiny Lamy, New Mexico, the nearest station to Santa Fe. Then they checked in at 109 East Palace Ave. in Santa Fe where Dorothy McKibbin would make arrangements for everything from their luggage and household goods to their passes that would get them into the Secret City. Next, it was a 35-mile trip to the northwest, one that could take up to four hours, depending on the conditions of the dusty or muddy arroyos and the steep, winding mountain road.
Physicists, chemists, metallurgists, explosive experts and military personnel converged on the isolated plateau. At times, six Nobel Prize winners gathered with the other scientists and engineers in the weekly colloquia put on by Robert Oppenheimer. Meanwhile, the Army was charged with supporting the work, building buildings, keeping the commissary supplied, and guarding the top-secret work.
Hurriedly built, huge laboratory buildings sprawled along the south side of Ashley Pond. Rows of four-family apartments strung to the west toward the mountains. A few board sidewalks raised residents up out of the mud that was prevalent in winter when snow melted and in summers during the afternoon monsoons.
The obstacles that had to be overcome and questions that had to be answered before an atomic bomb could be built were numerous. The required amount fissionable material did not exist in the world. How would a nuclear explosion be triggered? What could be used to trigger it? What sorts of metals were needed for such a bomb? Could a nuclear explosion burn the atmosphere? Many even wondered whether the “gadget,” as it was called, would work. The scientists worked feverishly in fear that the Germans were developing a nuclear weapon and would have it ready before the United States.
The scientists and engineers labored on for two years. They carried out experiments in metallurgy and high explosives. They scribbled mathematical calculations on chalkboards and cocktail napkins. They worked 10- and 12-hour days six days a week then sipped famously potent martinis at Oppenheimer’s home and played musical concerts in Fuller Lodge for relaxation. Meanwhile, enriched uranium and plutonium were developed in Oakridge, Tenn., and Hanford, Wash.
Finally, on July 16, 1945, at 5:30 a.m., an incredible burst of light exploded over the desert in south central New Mexico. Trinity, as the test shot was known, answered many of the questions the scientists had been asking. The bomb’s yield, equivalent of 18,000 tons of TNT, astounded even the scientists who had spent years making painstaking calculations.
President Truman, meeting at Potsdam with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin, was informed of the successful test. Soon, he made the decision to use the remaining bombs in the U.S. arsenal on Japan.
Preparing "the gadget" at Trinity Test Site
Atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and on Nagasaki on Aug. 9. Five days later, the Emperor of Japan agreed to an unconditional surrender. World War II formally ended on Sept. 2, 1945, when treaties were signed aboard the USS Missouri. The Manhattan Project, a mission to end the war through the use of atomic weapons, had accomplished its goal.
The Los Alamos Historical Society is proud to lead preservation efforts in the traditional historic district of Los Alamos. As owners of the Oppenheimer House and homestead era Romero Cabin, the Historical Society is committed to preserving and maintaining the these unique, historic structures.
The buildings in the historic district originally belonged to the Los Alamos Ranch School. After the school closed to make way for the Manhattan Project, a bustling town sprang up around the Master’s Cottages. The new buildings consisted of unattractive, temporary apartment buildings, Quonset huts and dormitories.
With very few exceptions, new housing in Los Alamos was built with showers but no bathtub. Because of the scarcity of iron during the early phases of the war, Congress had limited the types of bathroom fixtures that could be included in new construction, thus tubs were not permitted. It soon became obvious to all residents that the only persons who could enjoy the luxury of a bath were the families living in the former masters’ cottages. The homes soon became known as "Bathtub Row," an affectionate term still used today.
Romero Cabin
A certain social status went with living in the attractive, well-built houses on Bathtub Row. “In the beginning only the most important persons lived there,” Laura Fermi, wife of Nobel Prize winner Enrico Fermi wrote. “As the months went by, it became uncertain in envious minds whether Bathtub Row derived its luster from its residents or whether the residents acquired distinction from living in it.” Fermi credits Alice Kimball Smith, the wife of another Manhattan Project scientist, coining the term "Bathtub Row."
The Romero Cabin, relocated to the historic district in the 1980s, recently received a $30,000 grant from the state of New Mexico. The Historical Society intends to use this grant to restore this treasure from the early years of the Pajarito Plateau.