Blog

There are two well-known deaths that are associated with Los Alamos from the time of the Manhattan Project, Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin. Both of these deaths were caused by criticality accidents while handling the “demon core”. What many people do not know is that there were 22 more deaths

By Kaity Burke   Did you see the article about us in the Daily Post?  We had some very special guests in our archives on March 24th. Some of the remaining family of George T. May III (nicknamed Tertius) visited our archives with a donation. For decades, the family has

By Kaity Burke   Did you know that Los Alamos was the only county in the state of New Mexico to participate in Daylight Savings Time (DST) for many years?     In late April of 1946, a census was collected within Los Alamos regarding the adoption of Daylight Savings Time.

​ By Kaity Burke This image was taken during the Ranch School era. The camera is facing East and you may recognize the two parallel roads. Be sure to notice where these roads merge together in the distance. Downtown Los Alamos revolves around two roads, Trinity Drive and Central Avenue.

​By Kaity Burke We remember the Trinity test as the changing point for the future of weapons development and the course of the Second World War. The basic details are frequently talked about; it was the first major test of the implosion design, it was successful, it occurred on July

​By Kaity Burke ​Living on the Los Alamos Plateau always brings forth curiosities, but some of the biggest ones are our local Ancestral Puebloan Sites. No matter where you are in town you will be within a several hundred-foot proximity to ones of these sites, or at least where one

This month we are exploring #InsideTheArchives to rediscover a lost Los Alamos locale: Higgins Park. Do you recognize the name? Have you heard stories of this Manhattan Project-era park? ​ The stairway leading from the mesa top to the MP picnic area in 1945 or 1946. Bingham Collection, Los Alamos

If you have lived in Los Alamos for very long, then it is likely you have run into someone who has used a building as a landmark when giving you directions. Now, whether that building is still in existence or the business names they use still occupy the space is

Come Inside the Archives with us this month to check out one of our most recent donations. These images are digitized copies of some of the slides donated by Betty Pickens Cabber, the daughter of Homer and Edna Pickens. Can you help us identify any of the people (or animals)

Los Alamos has many treasured community members, one of whom is Bun Ryan (Dec. 23, 1923-Sept. 29, 2014) who was named a Living Treasure of Los Alamos in 1999. Bun Ryan is famous in Los Alamos for his fast pitches as part of the Pierotti’s Clowns, but his contributions to

Los Alamos Historical Society Executive Director Elizabeth Martineau in the Victory Garden behind the Hans Bethe House on Bathtub Row. Enterprise Bank’s support helped create this garden open daily to the public. Photo by Gordon McDonough By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyThe Los Alamos Historical Society is planting a victory

Louis Slotin started working on the Manhattan Project in Chicago in 1942 and came to Los Alamos in 1944. Slotin assembled the core of the Gadget at Trinity—if you have seen photos from the Trinity Test, you have probably seen him in them.On May 21st, 1946 Louis Slotin was killed

Homer and Edna enjoying a sunny day with friends at Ashley Pond. Photo by Sharon Snyder By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyTwo snowy white geese on Ashley Pond have captivated the community in the past months. The male goose, Homer, has lived on the pond for several years, but in

Historic Fuller Lodge in springtime. Courtesy/Los Alamos Historical Society Archive By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyOn Sept. 17, 1928, the Santa Fe New Mexican ran a headline: “Los Alamos School Opens, Fuller Lodge Is Completed”. The article referred to a beautiful log edifice two and a half stories high, with

The Guest Cottage as it appeared in 1942. Courtesy/Los Alamos Historical Society ArchiveThe Guest Cottage, 2018. Photo by Todd Nickols By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyFor more than a century, the oldest continuously used building in Los Alamos has served at different times as an infirmary, a guest cottage, living

April 1st marks the 75th anniversary of Los Alamos becoming a “Company Town” with the Zia Company being contracted to run the Los Alamos Laboratory and the community of Los Alamos in 1946. They managed the town until the early 1960s, and continued to manage the Laboratory until 1986. You can still

We’re looking forward to next week’s lecture on our local Prohibition-era history—and looking #InsideTheArchives too! We’ve found some fun photos and artifacts related to Los Alamos and liquor over the years. Fuller Lodge’s hotel bar on December 1, 1950. Zia Collection, Los Alamos Historical Society Photo Archives. Moscow mule mug

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyThe oldest continuously lived-in house in Los Alamos was built on the Los Alamos Ranch School campus in 1925 and was known as the Chief Mechanics House.It is still the neighbor of the old Guest Cottage that today houses our History Museum. In the first years

The Pyramid in winter, Los Alamos Ranch School, c. 1924. Courtesy/Los Alamos Historical Society Archive By Sharon SnyderLos Alamos Historical SocietyIn the first three years of the Los Alamos Ranch School (LARS), the masters and boys all lived in a large, two-story log building known as the Big House. It

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyThe houses of Bathtub Row have seen many occupants through the years and have many stories to tell, but the name Oppenheimer lends a special aura to one of those houses. It had existed for thirteen years before it became the temporary home for Robert

“If Ashley hadn’t created the Pajarito Club, he would never have met Harold Brook and started the Los Alamos Ranch School. Without that school on the mesa, the Manhattan Project would most likely not have been located here, and all of us would be living somewhere else today!” Pajarito Club

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical Society ​The road that is Bathtub Row today passed by masters’ quarters and classrooms during the Los Alamos Ranch School years. During the Manhattan Project, it was the road to the houses assigned to key staff members at Project Y, and now it leads to

Master Cottage #1 shown in 2018, now known as the Hans Bethe House and Harold Agnew Cold War Gallery. Photo by Todd Nickols By SHARON SNYDER The Los Alamos Ranch School (LARS) was in its seventh year when Director A.J. Connell had a small wooden building constructed to the west

In January on Facebook we’re going #InsideTheArchives to enjoy one of the treasures of Los Alamos history through the years. Following the Tsankawi Trail, you have a great overlook of what is now known as Duchess Castle. While this weathered structure is on National Park Service’s Bandelier National Monument land

By SHARON SNYDER​In this very different Christmas season, I find comfort in the words of Edith Warner, the woman who lived at Otowi Bridge. Life hands us challenges in many different ways.  The challenges we are facing now are different from the ones she faced during World War II, but

This month on Facebook we’re going #InsideTheArchives to explore the Oppenheimer House at 1967 Peach St. Affectionately called the Oppenheimer House, the log and stone structure was built in 1929 for the Los Alamos Ranch School. Laura Gilpin photographed these Los Alamos Ranch School students in front of the Oppenheimer House

This photo accompanied the 1959 article in the LASL Community News and shows the fenced area. The boys and their dog are Dick Lilienthal, 12; Dick Baker, 10; Chip Lilienthal, 10; and Shag, Courtesy/LASL Community News By SHARON SNYDER I’ve walked past the Ancestral Puebloan site in our historic district

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical Society The observance of Thanksgiving at Los Alamos Ranch School (LARS) in 1941 was the last one of a traditional nature. Ten days later, Pearl Harbor was bombed, and within the next few months Headmaster Lawrence Hitchcock and other masters would be in the military

On Facebook this month we’re going #InsideTheArchives to explore Manhattan Project secrecy. A military examiner, identified only as #2034, used these two censor form slips to return a letter to Edward Wilder. Wilder Collection, Los Alamos Historical Society Archives and Collections. During the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, large posters

On Facebook we went #InsideTheArchives to explore some of the history of Los Alamos retail. Click through to explore historic photos and artifacts from businesses and shopping in the past. George Hillhouse and Mr. and Mrs. Martin in the Los Alamos Pastry Shop, sometime between 1947–1957. Los Alamos Historical Society

Absolutely! Here’s an #InsideTheArchives post from our Facebook account that looks at a couple of historic photographs from two local playgrounds alongside a collection of current photos from this year. These snapshots give us changes to the structures over the years. These can inform us about what interested kids at

Earlier this summer, we reflected on the closure of the Reel Deal Theater with an #InsideTheArchives post on Facebook exploring the history of movie theaters in our community. Since the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos has had six separate theaters with some of those being acquired by different owners and renamed. Our

Here’s another #InsideTheArchives post from our Facebook page, this one focusing on people whose lives intersected with Fuller Lodge: the waitresses of The Lodge hotel. In our society it is rare to live and work in the same location (although this is now the case for many us during this

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyFuller Lodge, the venerable log building and the heart of our town, was actually named Edward P. Fuller Lodge, and this is the story of how it got its name. The Lodge, as it is called most of the time, was designed by noted Santa

The Bulletin kept the community informed once a week with news ranging from events to golf clubs for sale to lost and found kittens. It also listed movies being shown in the post theater. The community was fortunate that week. Meet Me In St. Louis was showing and starred Judy

Gilman Tunnels. Photo by Sharon Snyder By Sharon SnyderLos Alamos Historical SocietyWith autumn just around the corner, thoughts of colorful foliage and drives through the mountains come to mind. State Road 4 passes through golden aspens and accents of red in the Jemez Mountains, but it can also take you

Eastern plains, San Miguel County, New Mexico. Photo by Sharon Snyder By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyWhen Ashley Pond Jr. founded the Los Alamos Ranch School in 1917, the road from Santa Fe to the school passed through the tiny village of Buckman, situated on the east side of the

New York Times journalist William Laurence. Courtesy image By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyJournalist William Laurence already had a keen interest in science when he attended the Harvard Tercentenary Conference of Arts and Sciences in 1936. Four years later he attended a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyMany famous names emerged from the Manhattan Project years on the Pajarito Plateau, but not all were scientists.Haskell Sheinberg, who came to Los Alamos as a member of the Special Engineer Detachment and stayed at the lab after the war years, remembered one such name.

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyIn 2018, Russian scientist Vladimir Shmakov walked past the doors of the library for the Physics and Mathematics department at the Russian Federal Nuclear Center for Technical Physics (VNIITF). A display of new books caught his attention. It included a two-volume set of Doomed to

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyWhen Peggy Pond Church first saw the site where her father would one day open a school for boys, she was 12 years old. She remembered it in later years as “not much more than a homesteader’s farmhouse, a few sheds, and a muddy puddle

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyAs noted in the book Los Alamos: The Ranch School Years, “photography played an important role in advertising and promoting Los Alamos” from its early years to the closing in 1945, but photography also made a huge contribution to historians who have worked to document

By Sharon SnyderLos Alamos Historical Society In this time of disrupted events, including the graduation ceremony for the Los AlamosHigh School Class of 2020, I chose to do this column on Graduation Canyon to coincidewith a time when many teens in our town had looked forward to wearing caps and

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical Society ​Two weeks ago I wrote about Camp May, the getaway for senior boys at the Los Alamos Ranch School (LARS), but there was also another camp, one primarily used by the younger boys. Camp Hamilton has a longer, more detailed history. In 1918, the

By Sharon SndyerLos Alamos Historical Society The Los Alamos County Park known as Camp May has long been enjoyed as a place for picnics, camping, hiking, birding, and many other outdoor pursuits, but a look into its history can make possible an even greater appreciation. Camp May came into existence

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietySometimes the old saying “it’s a small world” is amazingly true! That statement definitely relates to the circumstances of a letter written in WWII and sent from France to a Women’s Army Corps (WAC) at Project Y. A native of Oxford, Miss., Katherine “Pat” Patterson

Katherine Stinson. Courtesy photo By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyIn the early 1900s, a young Alabama woman named Katherine Stinson contacted famed aviator Max Lillie to ask if he would teach her to fly. His response: “Not a chance.” He was looking at a girl 5 feet tall and maybe

By Aimee SlaughterLos Alamos Historical Society ​How did people in the Pajarito Plateau’s past get their water? How did they live in a dry environment like ours? Ancestral Pueblo people who lived here hundreds of years ago used ingenious dryland farming techniques, and homesteading farmers at the turn of the

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical SocietyFor the first day of spring 2020, it seems appropriate to tell the story of a flower garden. Not just any flower garden, but one that has been special to Los Alamos for many years. Since the days of the Los Alamos Ranch School there

By Sharon SnyderLos Alamos Historical SocietyAlong with the recent announcement of the closure of CB Fox, an old photograph of their location on Central Avenue surfaced. Dave Fox sent the picture of the old Hill Theatre to the Historical Society, and it created a curiosity about movie entertainment from the

By Sharon SnyderLos Alamos Historical Society ​When Ashley Pond Jr.’s attempt to start a ranch school near Watrous, NM, washedaway in a flood in 1904, the disappointment was overwhelming. He returned hometo Detroit and worked for a time in the fledgling automobile industry, but it wasn’tlong before he was drawn

By Sharon SnyderLos Alamos Historical SocietyAfter writing an article recently about a World War II prisoner of war (POW) camp in Kansas, I received several comments and questions that led me to do a sequel and bring the topic closer to home. Not long after the United States entered World

By Sharon SnyderLos Alamos Historical SocietyWhen Liz Martineau took over as executive director of the Historical Society last summer, I interviewed her for the Los Alamos Daily Post. In the course of that interview she mentioned that her father was a history buff and had written a book. “I’ll loan

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical Society ​The history of the Los Alamos Ranch School (LARS) is well documented. Two books have been written about the school, and the centennial of its founding was celebrated in 2017.People in our community are reminded of the LARS years when they see the log

By Sharon SnyderLos Alamos Historical Society In mid August, the historical society was contacted by a young woman who wanted tovisit Los Alamos to see where her ancestors had been during the Manhattan Project. Shewould be flying from Denmark and wanted to learn what might still be here from that

By SHARON SNYDER and MAXINE JOPPALos Alamos Historical Society In 1973, the alumni of the Los Alamos Ranch School arranged a huge reunion in Santa Fe. Many of the former students flew to Chicago just to take a special train to Lamy, a route many of them had taken as young boys.

by Sharon SnyderLos Alamos Historical Society ​Helene Suydam, one of our revered residents, enjoyed a very special milestone thispast week. On August 25, she turned 100 years old! Helene celebrated the day witha small party hosted by her niece Sarah Ashton and grandniece Rebekah Ashton.Family members traveled from as far

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical Society Recently I met up with friends who were visiting Bandelier National Monument for an afternoon. I hadn’t seen them in a long time, nor had I visited Bandelier in several years. We had a fine afternoon, and at times I found myself reminiscing about

By Sharon SnyderLos Alamos Historical SocietyIn the 25 years of the Los Alamos Ranch School’s existence, more than 550 boys came to the Pajarito Plateau as students and/or summer campers. Almost all of them went on to earn college degrees and make contributions to their chosen communities and, in many

By Sharon SnyderLos Alamos Historical SocieyWith the recent ceremony in Graduation Canyon to honor Los Alamos Ranch School Headmaster Lawrence Hitchcock, it seems fitting to also remember the first headmaster who charted the course in the formative years of the school. In 1917, Ashley Pond Jr. opened his ranch school

By KALLIE FUNKLos Alamos Historical Society InternI was born and raised in Los Alamos. My mom was as well, so I have always thought I knew everything there was to know about Los Alamos and its history. However, after I accepted a research internship at the Los Alamos Historical Society

By MIRIAM WALLSTROMLos Alamos Historical Society Intern This summer I’ve had the unique opportunity to intern at the Los Alamos Historical Society, where I’ve been given a taste of what happens behind the scenes of this non-profit organization. Working for a non-profit requires flexibility and the ability to wear many hats,

By Heather McClenahanLos Alamos Historical Society​This week marks the 73rd anniversaries of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the end of World War II, the bloodiest conflict in human history.Reaction to the end of the war in Los Alamos, according to those who

By Sharon SnyderLos Alamos Historical Society For most people, our first personal connections to history are generally made in our hometowns as we are growing up. For those who count Los Alamos as their hometown, the experiences are unique and not easily understood by people anywhere else. With only the

By Heather McClenahanLos Alamos Historical Society The Los Alamos History Museum is excited to announce that its new exhibit, “Pierotti’s Clowns: Creating Community,” is on display now through December 2018 in the Los Alamos County Municipal Building at 1000 Central ave. Visit this exhibit to learn about the celebrated accomplishments of

By Stephanie YeamansLos Alamos Historical Society As the community of Los Alamos, a relatively young town in historic New Mexico, grows older, portions of its population are also aging. When retirees downsize or parents pass away, families often wonder what to do with old papers and objects from years gone

By Heather McClenahanLos Alamos Historical SocietyThe martinis made by Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer are legendary. It’s no wonder, when his recipe calls for four ounces—four ounces!—of gin. According to Pat Sherr, wife of a Manhattan Project physicist, “He served the most delicious and coldest martinis.” Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning

By HEATHER MCCLENAHANLos Alamos Historical Society “Los Alamos Notes Little Effect From Opening Its Gates” is a historic headline. It appeared in the May 6, 1957 edition of the of the Albuquerque Journal, with an article about how removing the security gates at the entrance of the once-secret city did not lead to a

By Heather McClenahanLos Alamos Historical Society​A wrought iron gate, a smudged letter, and an old drum might rarely have intrinsic value. Rather, at least in the case of a museum, their value is in the stories behind them—what they represent—that gives them meaning. Such is the case at the Los

One of the charming sites in the Los Alamos Historic District is the Romero Cabin, a log structure originally built in 1913. The building has not always been in that location, though. When it was first constructed, it was two mesas to the south on land that is now occupied by

By HEATHER MCCLENAHANLos Alamos Historical Society Do you remember the last time you received an important letter—a real letter written in ink on real paper? In today’s world of texts, instant messages, and e-mails, it’s rare to get a genuine letter anymore. Yet historians are privileged to make discoveries with historic letters

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical Society The first airplane to land on the Pajarito Plateau set down in a open field in 1928. It was flown by Ashley Pond Jr., founder of the Los Alamos Ranch School. Pond had planned to volunteer for pilot training in World War I. He tried to

By SHARON SNYDERLos Alamos Historical Society Sometimes a chance encounter can result in something unexpected. That was the case last August when I visited Mesa Verde National Park. I was wearing my Los Alamos Ranch School shirt with the embroidered logo when I met a volunteer ranger in the park. We were enjoying a nice

By DON CAVNESSLos Alamos Historical Society Curator All museums have a characteristic and somewhat capricious weakness when it comes to managing their collections. We all have orphan artifacts that have absolutely no paper trail. In many cases, institutional memories that at one time would have provided important clues to ownership and

By HEATHER MCCLENAHANLos Alamos Historical Society Stan Ulam may be one of the least known of the leading Manhattan Project scientists. A Polish-born mathematician, he was working as an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, when he received a letter from physicist Hans Bethe, inviting him to join a wartime

Los Alamos is known worldwide as the birthplace of the atomic bomb. Our history and the people who made it have an international reach. For the Los Alamos Historical Society, whether the stories are about geopolitical machinations during the Cold War or about the development of a neighborhood, all of

By HEATHER MCCLENAHANLos Alamos Historical Society Many years ago, someone at Los Alamos High School penciled on the fore edge of a history book on the teacher’s desk, “In case of flood, grab this. It’s dry.” Perhaps many of us had the kind of high school history classes in which

Los Alamos Historical Society: Severo Gonzales stopped by the Los Alamos Historical Society offices last week. It’s always a pleasure to visit with him and his brother Ray, who—in their 80s—remain active and tell wonderful stories of their lives as children on the Pajarito Plateau in the 1930s. They were instrumental

LOS ALAMOS HISTORICAL SOCIETY Do you know the names of the five Nobel Prize winners who have lived on Bathtub Row? Or why the homesteaders who lived in the little cabin near the Memorial Rose Garden farmed only 15 acres on the plateau? Or what spurred Ashley Pond to start