You might look at the title of this post and scoff. Nightlife in Los Alamos? Does that exist? Well yes, actually, it does! Even more interesting is the fact that Los Alamos has always had quite a vibrant nightlife. It’s just not driven by block after block of bowling alleys, restaurants, stores, theaters, and bars. A pub crawl in Los Alamos is usually done simply because one establishment has the beverage and the other has the food!

In the early years of the Manhattan Project, the nightlife here in Los Alamos was really all about the parties. ANY excuse for a party. Holidays, birthdays, office gatherings, going-away parties, outdoor picnics, steak parties… EVERY occasion was a chance to let loose. Simply suggest an event and someone would start planning it. But as I’ve said before… The thing that social events and nightlife had in common was the existence of an actual human to plan the event!

Radio Los Alamos

Modern folks are pretty demanding with their personalized playlists, Spotify accounts, and iTunes libraries. But back in the early days, Los Alamos had a “closed circuit” radio station. A man named Bob Porton was the first station manager and the first announcer of the radio station named KRS. If you weren’t aware, radio stations west of the Mississippi begin with the letter K and if your radio station is east of the Mississippi you begin your letters with a W. The official record states that KRS was established in February of 1946 as a “carrier current” station with limited broadcasting. KRSN took over in 1949 and was officially licensed to broadcast beginning in 1950.

During the early years, KRS was said to be keeping a lot of Los Alamos sane! Talented classical musicians like Otto Frisch often played live on the broadcast and there was a daily show called Music of the Masters. The show utilized records owned by anyone on the post (aka in Los Alamos) who wanted to contribute and a playlist was tacked outside the broadcasting booth. In some ways, KRS was a lot like many of us remember local college radio. The station sponsored dances and encouraged just about anyone with a music related talent to showcase on the broadcasts.

The Bands and Musical Groups of Los Alamos

One of the most well known and loved musical groups in Los Alamos in the mid 1940s was Los Cuatros. The group consisted of three military men and a civilian machinist, (Los Cuatros is pictured above). Sometimes Lois, wife of bass player “Locky” Lockhart would provide vocals for the group. Lois also regularly appeared with the Keynotes and Sad Sack Six. The Keynotes included a larger number of players and some brass instruments which made them super popular for “big band” sound dances, and dancing was the thing in Los Alamos in the 1940s!

Dances were available nearly seven nights a week! Even with three children under six years old, the Lockharts were constantly busy with the business of entertaining Los Alamos. Los Cuatros finally had to break up when the war ended and Gallo and Gard eventually left the Pajarito Plateau for their next military assignment. Los Cuatros actually made it 10 years. Both Locky Lockhart and Jon Michnovicz stayed on in Los Alamos, too enchanted by the scenery and the life to want to leave. Michnovicz can be spotted in almost every photo of musical talent acts in Los Alamos at that time. Of course, that might be due to his status as first a military and then a civilian photographer. A good number of the photos we’re used to seeing when we head to the Blue Window for a night out were taken by Michnovicz.

Theaters 1 & 2 were popular places for dances when there weren’t weddings, church services, theater performances, or other events going on. In the John Mench interview, he talks about the battles for supremacy that often happened when there was a basketball game and a sewing circle or a quilting bee overlapped on the Theater 2 schedule. Can you imagine?

Dorm Parties and Service Clubs

From the earliest times, life in Los Alamos involved lots of people living in tight spaces. In the early days you would have married couples and singles all living in the dormitories together. Los Alamos wife, Bernice Brode, once said that “Dorm parties were the biggest and brassiest.” She spoke further about the boys removing all the furniture from the common rooms in the dorms and bringing a supply of “Tech Area Punch”. Brode swore that even with the rather stiff punch, behavior never got out of control. Having grown up here myself, I find that a bit difficult to believe…

By 1946 when the town began to open just a bit, one of the most popular places to hang out was the Service Club. All were welcome. Indian or Hispanic, immigrants, scientists, PhDs, and regular working folks got their cokes or beer and ate a lot of fried egg sandwiches! As you can see in the photo, a jukebox sits in the lower left hand corner of the photo. The jukebox and the pinball machines were always going as folks gathered to enjoy a break.

In the early days, the service clubs were actually military post exchanges. There was a Military Police PX and a “Special Engineering District” or SED PX. Both required attendees to be military service members in some way. The WACs didn’t have their own PX, so they were welcome in the SED PX and often spent time enjoying the refreshments, snacks, sundries, and tables where they could meet up for a beer or a coke.

There was a NCO club for officers and it was once reported in mid 1946 that while beer was becoming scarce in the “outside world”, Los Alamos was scheduled to get 10,000 cases of beer. The speculated rate of arrival of alcoholic supplies in Los Alamos was rumored to be 200 cases per month. One PX procurement officer reported that 300 cases per beer were consumed a day at the Service Club.

I personally wonder if that number was padded in order to assure there would be enough delivered to keep the customers coming back. I can’t help but think of that long standing slogan: “Los Alamos is a drinking town with a science problem.” Maybe this is in part because there were so many Europeans here from the beginning. Alcohol tolerance, consumption habits, and limits are very different from culture to culture. We can’t forget the huge amount of stress either! A night of dancing and Tech Area Punch was likely to help you forget all about the actual project you were working on during the days.

Tech Area Punch!

Several times in the past I have mentioned “Tech Area Punch”. I first found references to this mysterious sounding beverage in Toni Michnovicz Gibson’s and Jon Michnovicz’s book, “Los Alamos: 1944-1947”. With a bit of poking around I found a mention in the Michnovicz’s book that the liquor component of Tech Area Punch could be somewhat uncertain. Some of the female writers refer to “mixed alcohol of all kinds” and there are plenty of suggestions about grapefruit juice or any available fruit juice as a mixer. But according to the John Mench interview included in the “Voices of the Manhattan Project”, Tech Area Punch developed like this:

And every night in the barracks they had a party where they played cards and drank “Tech Area Punch.” For those who don’t know what Tech Area Punch is, in “K-stock”—which was the chemical stock room—you could draw out a gallon of 190-proof grain alcohol. And they cut it with pineapple juice. And this was the drink of people who drank in Los Alamos, at least among the GIs, all during that period. So there was lots of Tech Area Punch, lots of card playing, lots of swearing, lots of singing, lots of noise, lots of hell-raising every night in the barracks.

Let’s Go to the Theater!

Something that John Mench refers to quite often in his interview, is the frequency of theater productions and movies available in the evenings. Remember that the Los Alamos Little Theater has been in operation since the first attempt at a play, “Right About Face” happened in 1943. If you want to know more about LALT, visit their website or check out a previous post HERE.

Take a look at the marquee visible in this photo of two GIs exiting the theater after enjoying a matinee. There were movies available almost every evening. John Mench remembers there being a lot of John Wayne pictures to see, but I imagine it didn’t matter what there was to watch. Escapism was going to be popular during wartime no matter where you are! Hmm… Not unlike escapism of any kind is welcome today!

So whether you love hanging at the Los Alamos Little Theater or you want to support SALA events, you’re on target as a Los Alamos Local! I’d like to think that part of our long standing local tradition involves supporting our LAMS Hawks, the Hilltoppers, attending theatrical and dance productions from DALA and many of the other wonderful and varied dance studios in town, catching an art exhibition, attending a Brown Bag Lunch lecture at Fuller Lodge, and pretty much being part of life here on the hill! This is how we developed as a community and it’s what we do best. And when you’re ready to join our community, give me a call! I’m a hometown girl who LOVES to chat real estate in Los Alamos. Whether you’re looking to buy or sell your home or even commercial property, I’d love to chat about it!