It isn’t difficult to understand the importance of “schools” when thinking about the history of Los Alamos. The reason Los Alamos exists as it does today is largely due to the Ranch School already occupying the Pajarito Plateau. The Fuller Lodge complex was quite literally the “first” school “building” in Los Alamos. This actually suggests education in Los Alamos goes back farther than science, research, or development.
The ranch school offered young men an education that most of us today would consider on par with one of the wilderness style programs often associated with troubled kids needing a boarding school with limited access to technology and modern comforts. Back then, the Los Alamos Ranch School developed work ethic, tenacity, and a can do attitude that was considered necessary for success in life.
The last class of students at the Ranch School finished their studies and left the mesa in January of 1943. The town of Los Alamos appeared as a jumble of hastily renovated or fabricated buildings within days and weeks of the students’ departure. A short while later, families of the technical and scientific staff arrived on the mesa. The ranch school was gone, so where did these kiddos go to school? The history and development of our nationally recognized school district might surprise you.
Log Cabin Education
The first “school” serving a handful of children occupying Los Alamos in mid to late 1943 was located in what Craig Martin calls a “log structure” attached to the Guest Cottage. Considering just how rural most of America still was in the early 1940s, this wasn’t unusual. In fact, lessons taught at the log cabin school were probably pretty high quality for the same reasons we experience high quality education in our district now. Educated scientists, engineers, and skilled technical staff weren’t shy in demanding good education for their offspring.
Central School
Students weren’t educated in the log cabin for very long. The Manhattan Project build a school on the west end of the current location of Mesa Public Library. On a map, it appears in the area of where Circle Drive is currently located. The school was just that: “Los Alamos School”. It’s location on the opposite side of the mesa from the technical areas was chosen for safety reasons. “It was built in rows of rooms, each one a level below the other and connected by steep walkways (Martin, 1998).” It’s strange, but when I read Craig Martin’s description of Central School, it reminds me a lot of the High School building prior to it’s renovation.
Central School got its name when Los Alamos outgrew it. The name came from its location in the center of town. Central School remained in use both prior to and after the war years. Once it was determined that Los Alamos would remain in use after the war, the Atomic Energy Commission began building additional elementary schools and Central School housed high school students until the current high school location was built in 1949. By 1966, Central School was outdated and no longer in use. It was torn down and the building materials were repurposed for other projects as often happened in those days.
Mesa School
If you’re not a history buff, you might have heard locals mention Mesa School, but probably have no clue where it was located. Mesa School was the first of two new elementary education facilities built here in Los Alamos in the late 1940s. The remains of Mesa School are now part of UNM-LA. If you consider the history of housing expansion in Los Alamos, Mesa School’s location near Western Area makes an awful lot of sense. In fact, it would be rather handy to have an elementary school in that area now. Considering the UNM-LA campus dates back to 1956 with the inception of the Center for Graduate Studies, its likely that Mesa School transitioned to its new “higher educational purpose” at that time.
Canyon School
The second of the new elementary schools here in town, Canyon School was located on the other end of Central Avenue near the intersection of Central and Canyon. The school was named for its close proximity to Canyon Rd and to Pueblo Canyon. For the record, this total lack of imagination in naming things around Los Alamos was an active choice by the Atomic Energy Commission. It has been suggested that the naming scheme might have been impacted by security concerns. Names reflected locations as a method of helping with navigation around town without the need for street signs. During a lull in enrollment, Canyon School was converted to Canyon Complex and now houses offices for professionals instead of schoolchildren. Canyon School isn’t the only school in the Los Alamos District to end up as office buildings, but more on that later.
White Rock Elementary School
Remember that White Rock began as a construction camp for non cleared workers at the Laboratory sometime in 1947. The camp was essentially independent of Los Alamos, which meant it required its own school. While the school was called White Rock Elementary, it is very likely that the structure served anyone without another school to attend until much later. In the original master plan for expansion of White Rock in the 1960s, an elementary and a junior high were located just off Sherwood Blvd with a senior high school proposed to be built on the other side of town. None of those plans came to fruition however, and the original White Rock Elementary served students until construction of Pinon Elementary in 1963.
As we come to the end of this post, you might be wondering how we can dive into the history of schools in Los Alamos while barely touching on any of the familiar schools our kids attend today. Well, stay tuned! Perhaps the one thing we don’t appreciate enough is the sheer flexibility of our school district. So many towns with similar isolated locations with variable populations gave up on the notion of being able to educate their young people without the help of larger populations in other towns and cities. Los Alamos has never done that. In spite of some enormous ups and downs in population, resources, and changes in educational trends and requirements nationwide, our schools strive to exceed expectations in every way possible.
So check back next week for more information on schools here in Los Alamos, past and present. And when you’re ready to talk housing in the Los Alamos School District, give me a call. I’m your hometown real estate broker!
Very enjoyable to read about history of this unique and great town.