Moment Caught on Film Becomes Historic Photo
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 Cooperate, and on the cover […]
Ashley Pond – Importance of a Small Body of Water
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 of water.”That mud puddle would […]
Photographic Record and Its Importance to History
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 the 25 years of the […]
Thoughts of Ceremonies on the Pajarito Plateau
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 gownsto their ceremony. Fate handed […]
Camp Hamilton – A Place of Colorful History
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 year after the Ranch School […]
Camp May Offers Fresh Air, Scenery, Bit of History
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 in the early years of […]
The Amazing Story of a World War II Letter
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 joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary […]
Figures in New Mexico History: Katherine Stinson Otero
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 a 100 pounds. She was […]
Water, People, and the Past
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 twentieth century also conserved water […]
Memorial Rose Garden’s History in Los Alamos
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 have been gardens near Fuller […]
