Ashley Pond is something most of us take for granted. It’s a place we gather. It’s a huge part of our community and it’s the central focus of quite a lot of life in Los Alamos. Sometimes we just call it “the Pond”. Truthfully, were it not for Ashley Pond the person, (Ashley Pond Junior of course!) we wouldn’t be living here on the Pajarito Plateau enjoying a not necessarily unusual snow day in March.

I’ve been digging into Los Alamos history a lot lately because we all seem fascinated with it and I find myself intrigued about exactly how our wonderful town seems to exist when it would be almost impossible to simply stumble upon this area on accident. This has led me to some rather interesting parallels between Ashley Pond and Los Alamos and the Pajarito Plateau as a whole.

Ashley Pond Junior was the only surviving son of Ashley and Harriet Pond. That’s not all that unusual for the time period. Children’s health was a national and global concern at that time. Ashley Junior had health issues from the beginning, but his parents were determined to throw their considerable resources at his health issues to give him the best chance to be their surviving child.

Ashley Senior was a lawyer. When Ashley Junior was born in 1872, his father was a director of the Michigan Central Railroad. He was also the chief midwestern counsel (lawyer) for Cornelius Vanderbilt. Ashley Senior was said to be stoic, businesslike, and totally lawyer like in personality. His surviving child was the polar opposite. He was honest, eager, gregarious, and often became the target of unscrupulous business schemes because he had a core belief in the inherent honor and fair play of others. His personal philosophy was that everything in life could be boiled down to two things. Right or wrong. This was a philosophy he brought with him to New Mexico and the Los Alamos Ranch School.

The fact that Ashley Pond Junior was the polar opposite of his stoic, lawyer like father is only one reason why the journey he made through his life is so very parallel to the one that Los Alamos itself has made.

Ashley Junior’s first experience in New Mexico happened around 1899 or 1900. In 1898 he joined up with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders and had hopes of going to Cuba to see action. Instead he wound up taking care of the horses in Tampa, FL because he became deathly ill with typhoid fever and was considered too sickly for active duty. His father sent him to a ranch near Catskill, NM. Catskill is now on the register of historic places in NM.

The only thing remaining of the original town in Colfax County are 25 brick structures shaped like beehives. These charcoal ovens are the only remainder of an enormous charcoal manufacturing operation. Charcoal had to manufactured in large quantities for metal smelting operations going on across the nation. There were 9 lumber camps in and around the Catskill area and the pine was cut down to fit inside the ovens as part of the charcoal manufacturing process. I can only imagine how the wild terrain, enormous lumber operation, ranching, and the connection to steel mills back east affected Ashley Pond Junior.

It didn’t take Pond very long to embrace life in New Mexico to the fullest. 30 year old Ashley Pond Junior fell in love with the 17 year old daughter of a Watrous rancher named Hazel Hallett. The couple married in 1903 and Peggy Pond was born right away. She was the eldest of three Pond children and the most well known here in Los Alamos because of her enormous contribution of photographs, books, information, and other history of our area.

The Pond family didn’t last long in Watrous. Ashley Junior was all set to start a school on ranch land he’d purchased in the area, but a flood on the Mora River wiped him out. This brief setback caused him to return to Detroit where he accepted a position as a vice president for Pontiac.

It’s hard to reconcile the idea of our Ashley Pond running a company like Pontiac. Marriage to Ashley Junior was difficult. Hazel often took the kids and went to live with her family as Ashley tried one venture or another. Most of his dreams collapsed and almost all of them involved New Mexico.

He ran a farm in Roswell, NM, which sounds a bit ambitious if you’ve spent much time down there in the wind, sun and sand. The family lived in a metal building which Hazel tried to spruce up with family antiques and imported rugs.

Meanwhile, Los Alamos wasn’t in much better shape. The Ramon Vigil Land Grant encompassed 32 thousand acres of grass and wooded land on the Pajarito Plateau. This land grant itself has come under scrutiny multiple times, (this eventually affected the building of Pajarito Acres too!) the grant had been purchased by midwestern based investors in the 1880s who essentially stripped the land of its resources through lumbering and overgrazing cattle. In 1900 Harry Buckman logged the same land for his lumber company, establishing the town of Buckman in White Rock Canyon as a shipping point. By 1903 the landscape was mostly tree stumps. Homesteaders had been on the Pajarito Plateau for decades by then but Harold H Brook and several investors purchased the land grant but never got around to doing much with it before going broke and dumping the land on a Santa Fe bank.

This is when Ashley Pond Junior and the Pajarito Club came on scene. (more about that HERE) Ashley Junior was determined to make the Pajarito Plateau his haven in New Mexico and he did everything possible to make that happen. It’s so incredible how similar the journeys of the land and the man seem to be. Ashley Junior’s Los Alamos Ranch School grew and thrived for twenty-five years. Compared to the others who owned or worked the land before he came on scene, that was an enormous amount of time.

Ashley Junior’s determination, passion, and dreams were the thing that caused Los Alamos to bloom. Historians have credited his willingness to think outside the box, his ability to charm those around him with his genuine enthusiasm and honor code, and his networking capabilities as the reason behind the school’s success. He integrated himself and the Los Alamos Ranch School in the community of the Pajarito Plateau. Homestead families were a huge part of the ranch school’s day to day running. The families in the Espanola Valley were part of that community as well and in return they became invested in the future of Los Alamos as well. As they still are today.

I think it’s really important to remember that Ashley Pond and his right hand man AJ Connell didn’t close the Los Alamos Ranch School because it failed or because it had run its course. The Parker Schools, Ashley Junior’s inspiration for the Los Alamos Ranch School, are still in operation today. It’s entirely reasonable to think that had Robert J Oppenheimer not been just as obsessed with New Mexico as Ashley Pond Junior, he never would’ve picked the ranch school as his Manhattan Project site. Had Oppenheimer not picked Los Alamos, the ranch school might very well still be in operation. How is THAT for an alternate timeline plot?

In short, what this means is that the longest standing traditions and purpose in Los Alamos are health and learning! No wonder we’re a top contender for the healthiest place to live in America. It’s just who we are! And when you’re ready to join our community, give me a call! I’m a hometown Los Alamos girl and I’d love to talk Los Alamos housing with you.