Thanks to the new Oppenheimer movie, Los Alamos memorabilia is a hot item on E-bay. A lot of this memorabilia includes postcards. I have to say that these are So. Much. Fun! While brainstorming ideas for this blog, I ran across a beautiful and very dated postcard photograph of the Post Office and Mesa Public Library circa 1945. It got me thinking about our two public library branches. Both are beautiful and modern. They offer our community a huge number of amenities and access to an enormous collection of information and artwork. So, how did this very small, remote town come to have such a great library system? The history might surprise you!

The First Library in Los Alamos

Considering the gathering of so many scientists, engineers, and pioneers of academia here in the early days of Los Alamos, it can’t be a surprise that creating a library became such an important task.

According to Lisa Bier’s research in “Atomic Wives & the Secret Library at Los Alamos”, the first librarian was Charlotte Serber, wife of prominent physicist Robert Serber. She was an unusual choice because she wasn’t a librarian at all. The history suggests that Oppenheimer chose her specifically because she wasn’t a librarian and therefore wouldn’t have the same hang ups about library protocol. It makes a lot of sense if you consider the haphazard and often slapped together quality of the Secret City during the early days. There probably wasn’t much time for protocol.

The original library materials had to be ordered, but could not be sent directly here. All mail to residents of Los Alamos was forwarded through a single post office box in Santa Fe. PO Box 1663 is still Triad’s LANL operating address today. In fact, many residents five to six generations back who were born in Los Alamos had PO Box 1663 on their birth certificates!

Library materials were ordered and borrowed through UC Berkley and numerous other scientific organizations. Over 1200 hardcover books and full runs of 50 different periodicals made the list.

But the coolest part of the library story illustrates the difficulty of keeping things secret. At one point, an investigator from Los Alamos was sent to Santa Fe to discover how random Santa Feans had gotten the names of some of the most secret and famous residents of Los Alamos. Turns out that these scientists and engineers had gotten library cards to the Santa Fe Library in their own names in order to borrow books! The books would be sent via mail. Can you imagine how strange it must’ve looked to the post office to have all of these books, periodical journals, and scientific research journals plus something like 250 copies of the Sears Catalog among other regular mailings. It would’ve been pretty obvious that there was something special going on in PO Box 1663!

This desire for secrecy prompted the security service to hang around in Santa Fe spreading misinformation about what was actually going on in Los Alamos. The “official version” was that we were making electric rockets up here. Eventually, as you might imagine, the Manhattan Project wasn’t able to be kept a secret anymore.

LANL Research Library

Of course, that original library is long gone. The current LANL Research Library is located on the main campus of LANL here in Los Alamos. It’s near the Otowi building and is able to accessed by the general public during regular business hours. As you might expect, not everything available to badged LANL employees is accessible to Average Joe, but just being able to go in there and see the building and some of the historical information housed there is worthwhile! If you do happen to work for LANL and have a badge, you can access the library 24/7. It’s an amazing collection of periodicals, technical papers, records of experiments, and books from every possible corner of the globe on any number of topics!

Mesa Public Library

The main branch of our local library is pretty recognizable to folks as they head toward the former location of Central School. Though the school was actually located more in the vicinity of Circle Drive, the library is just a little further up Central Ave with the main driveway entrance being just across from the Justice Center.

What a lot of folks don’t realize, is that the Mesa Public Library has tons of art on display and cataloged for educational use. Depending on the circumstances, some of the art can be checked out like a book. The gallery displays works from many well known contributors to the art world. The downstairs often offers kindermusic classes, story time, and any number of other kid friendly local activities.

The upstairs area of the modern library has rooms which can be reserved for meetings, group events, and other gatherings. There is no fee for local clubs or groups. You just need to chat with the ladies at the desk.

Of course, the first Mesa Public Library was part of the original Central Park Square Complex. The library was initially funded as a subscription library in 1943 by 70 local families who each donated $5. By 1945 it was free and open to everyone. In the image below, the library is on the right, but you can’t tell how far it extended. As I recall, the library building occupied all of the space between what is now the corner you can see in the image, and the jewelry store on the opposite corner. There were always stores fronting the parking lot at 15th and Central Ave. It really does give me a sense of nostalgia to see this photo image. I’ll talk more in another post about Central Park Square in general.

White Rock Branch Library

The first branch library in White Rock was opened in 1985. It was located in a small section of the White Rock Community Center on Longview Dr. The space still hosts the White Rock Senior Center, but in 2015 the county built a fabulous library on the corner of Sherwood Blvd and State Road 4 directly across the highway from the White Rock Visitor Center. If you’ve never been to the White Rock Branch Library, it’s worth a visit just for the spectacular views from the windows. Handily enough, the library is right next to the White Rock Youth Activity Center which offers kiddos 3rd-8th grade the opportunity to go back and forth depending on what activities they want to participate in. If you haven’t visited, make a plan to do it soon!

Regardless of whether or not you love books, it’s hard to deny the value in our local libraries. It’s just one more amazing thing about life in Los Alamos. When you’re ready to make the move, give me a call! This is a great time to sell real estate in Los Alamos County and a popular time to join our community. I’d love to talk to you!