Tag: Living in Los Alamos (Page 1 of 16)

Here in Los Alamos County, Bandelier is soooo yesterday’s news that we rarely even think about it unless we have out of town friends and family coming for a visit. Our local population was aware of the recent road construction down at the bottom of the truck route and we were vaguely aware that by changing that intersection, it made visitor parking at the Tsankawi archaeological site much more accessible. But not everyone necessarily knows that Tsankawi is part of the Bandelier National Monument. In fact, it’s rather spotty trying to look at a map and figure out where the boundary lines between Bandelier and the Department of Energy land begin and end since there is so much overlap and the public can access plenty of these overlaps through the shiny pedestrian gates located at many trailheads around the region.

So why is there so much overlap between “LANL” and Bandelier? Where did the name come from anyway? It certainly doesn’t sound like a Pueblo or Spanish word. As I was cruising down State Road 4 toward Pajarito Acres the other day, I thought it might be worth a peek!

Turns out, Bandelier is the last name of an unhappy banker from Highland, Illinois. However, Adolph Bandelier wasn’t originally from Illinois. He was born in Bern, Switzerland on August 6, 1840. He came to Illinois with his family in 1848 and was pretty much expected to go into the family business, which he did. Then at 40 yrs old he decided to drop his successful banking career to pursue a longtime interest in archaeology and anthropology. According to the National Parks Service website, Bandelier’s niche interest was focused on tracing “the social organization, customs, and movements of southwestern and Mexican peoples”. I don’t know about you, but that seems an enormous task!

The guy visited 166 sites in New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico in the first 18 months of his career! But one of Bandelier’s most significant career highs was when he asked some of the men of the Cochiti Pueblo to guide him to their ancestral home in Frijoles Canyon on October 23, 1880. This discovery captured Adolph Bandelier’s imagination so strongly that he used the experience to imagine a fictional novel of life in a pueblo settlement in the pre-Spanish era. The book, titled The Delight Makers, was published in 1890 and is still available in print if you look for it used on Ebay or Amazon.

Adolph Bandelier left the US in 1892 to continue his studies in Bolivia and Peru before heading to Seville, Spain where he died on March 18, 1914. He was buried in Seville and Bandelier National Monument was established by President Woodrow Wilson two years later on February 11, 1916. Then in 1977, Adolph Bandelier’s remains were exhumed. His ashes were eventually spread within Bandelier National Monument in 1980.

The dates may seem off, but perhaps the massive amount of paperwork it took to exhume a body in one country, ship it, and then arrange for the spreading of the ashes took a significant amount of time. There is certainly no doubt that Adolph Bandelier considered our local “ruins” to be his life’s most worthwhile endeavor.

We’ve already discussed the general interest in historic, indigenous ruins and how it brought so many different people to the Pajarito Plateau over the years. You can read some more about the early Pajarito Club HERE. The students of the Los Alamos Ranch School were allowed to excavate wherever they found ruins, which is how the ruins currently situated along 19th Street were established as an ancestral site to begin with. But what about folks hanging about in Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project? How did our technical areas get so tangled up with Bandelier when the National Monument status was granted in 1916?

I think we should probably remember that Adolph Bandelier visited 166 sites in Mexico and the American Southwest in 18 months! His guided trip from the Cochiti Pueblo to ancestral lands in Frijoles Canyon didn’t necessarily mean Bandelier excavated everything from Cochiti to the current entrance of the park on State Road 4. Most us of can also recall a time when – whether for better or worse – access and freedom to crawl all over rock formations and ancient ruins was much less restricted.

This relaxed attitude toward excavation, exploration, and general access to the ruins which a modern mind considers “Bandelier” was one of the favorite pastimes of the Los Alamos staff during the Manhattan Project. According to Jon Michnovicz’s book Los Alamos 1944-1947, Stanislaw Ulam and Enrico Fermi in particular had many important and lively discussions while traipsing around the ruins of “Tyuonyi”.

Also, while the National Monument was established in 1916, it was originally under the US Forest Service. Bandelier was not transferred to the National Park Service until 1932. Edgar Hewett, who excavated Tyuonyi, originally proposed that the whole area be set aside as the Pajarito National Park. This concept gained no support thanks to local ranchers, famers, homesteaders, and lumber companies. Then comes the very secretive Manhattan Project, which carved out sections of ancient indigenous lands for what had originally been a short term project.

If you consider the very slow shift of open territory to public and private and eventually returning in part to native owned lands, the current checkerboard quality of Bandelier and the incredible open space around Los Alamos begins to make a bit more sense. There has also been a great amount of effort geared toward preservation and respect of these cultural sites. Here in our region, we’ve seen many places which were historically considered “trailheads” or places to hike become officially mapped and some of them – like Tsankawi – are now part of Bandelier and require a park pass or an entrance fee which helps provide for preservation as well as necessary amenities like restrooms and visitor centers or information booths.

As we leave the school year for the summer and we think about things to do over the summer, it might be time to revisit the Bandelier National Park website HERE. You can plan a hike or take in a native cultural demonstration at the main park. Or, you could plan a hike to the Falls or to the Caldera and enjoy a peek at scenery which has fascinated visitors to Los Alamos ever since AJ Connell’s Summer Camps at the Los Alamos Ranch School!

And when you’re ready to join our community here in Los Alamos, give me a call! We have some amazing homes here in the Secret City and I’d love to help you discover your perfect home in Los Alamos. I’m a hometown girl and I love to chat real estate in Los Alamos!

As LAHS students enjoy a “Night in Greece” at Prom 2025, it’s only natural for the rest of us to reminisce about our own high school prom experiences. It’s a pretty universal reaction to reminisce about your high school prom. I certainly don’t mean to suggest that all of those memories are “the best” of your high school experience. Isn’t that why we often suggest to our offspring that they go to prom so that they can “have that experience to think back on in adulthood”?

Why Prom?

I think most of us at least know, on some level, that the shortened word “prom” comes from the word “promenade”, which definitely isn’t something most of us go around saying these days. According to that lovely device called AI: The word “prom” is a shortened version of “promenade,” a French word meaning “a leisurely walk, a walk for pleasure or display”. In the 19th century, “promenade” also referred to a formal march or parade, often used in elite social gatherings. The term evolved to describe formal dances, particularly those held by high school and college classes, and became shortened to “prom”. 

The key concept in the AI provided description is probably “a walk for pleasure or display”. In years gone by, a young woman would “promenade” in order to get the attention of a future husband. Thank goodness that’s not the focus of prom these days… Except, it sort of gets that way, doesn’t it? Nowadays though, we talk about school dances as a way to socialize. Any sort of social event is meant to provide a means of entertainment, but it’s also a way to get social experience. Better to make those big time social faux pas in high school and learn from them, right?

Okay, hopefully your prom experience in high school wasn’t that bad! But I do think the idea of school dances or “promenades” being an opportunity to meet new people and make memories has always been a thing. Certainly it brings to mind some of the first “school dances” here in Los Alamos.

In an earlier post, which you can find HERE, I talked about the girls of the Brownmoor School for Girls. This wonderful school was run out of the Bishop’s Lodge in the Santa Fe area. I can’t even begin to imagine the logistical nightmare of getting 30-40 teen girls from Santa Fe to the Los Alamos Ranch School before the age of modern roads and vehicles. Much less to get them here with all of their pretty prom dresses, their beauty kits, and who knows what else they needed to get ready!

And if any of you are wondering, NO! I’m not going to include one of my prom photos in this post! However, if you’d like to share one of yours, that would certainly be welcome. Feel free to drop one in the comments or in the comments of my Facebook post!

That’s probably the last piece of the AI wisdom I found really interesting: Over time, the meaning of “prom” expanded to encompass the entire event, including the formal dance, dress code, and often a significant celebration of a milestone like graduation.

I don’t think this was intended to suggest that there should be yet another “Graduation Prom”. Although Graduation is certainly a formal parade and includes a “promenade”. I think this is referring to the way we used to call it Jr/Sr Prom and typically students must be a Junior or a Senior to attend. These days, Los Alamos High School is holding Prom at Buffalo Thunder. The big venue is right in line with everything else about the modern “prom night” expectations!

Makeup, hair, custom dresses, and even “promposals” which can be far more elaborate than most traditional wedding proposals. Whew! Prom can really be a big event these days! By the way, if you’re like me and a bit nostalgic for prom in the 90s, check out this wonderful post from “Grown & Flown”. There’s nothing like thinking you got the perfect dress only to realize that your friend thought it was perfect too!

Once upon a time, the LAHS prom used to be held in Griffith Gymnasium each year and the Junior class was responsible for using their class money to plan and purchase decorations to “put on” the prom for the Senior class. I’m sure a significant portion of each Junior class would’ve much rather done something else with the money, but it was meant to be a “gift” of sorts and an early way to “pay it forward” as well. Although “Under the Sea” isn’t really all that far from “A Night In Greece” is it? What was YOUR favorite prom theme?

Regardless of whether or not you went to your high school prom, let’s all be happy for the Hilltopper Class of 2025 and hope the kids have a great night and stay safe! And when you’re ready to join our community on the hill, give me a call! There are some amazing homes here in Los Alamos for sale and this could be the perfect time to find your dream house!

Most of us think we know what censorship is. Our modern communications are peppered with terms like “encrypted” and most of us are well aware of the danger of sending electronic communications with our personal health information, identifying info like a social or even a phone number in some cases. But no matter how much you think you understand about censorship, I don’t think it’s possible for us to fully grasp what it was like in Los Alamos in the 1940s.

Day to Day Post

If you were part of Site Y, you had a responsibility to follow the provisions of paragraph 3d of War Department Training Circular No. 15 dated 16 February 1943. Eleanor Jette provides these guidelines in the appendices of her book, Inside Box 1663. The layers of security are daunting to imagine. Tech Area employees had to deposit their mail inside the Tech Area Censorship receptacle. Everyone else had to use either the Army receptacle at the Army post depot or the civilian receptacle. But in the early days, everything came in and out of PO Box 1663.

The guidelines specified that all censorship would be done off site by personnel educated in the specific process of censorship. It’s difficult to imagine what it would’ve been like to be up on the hill in the Secret City back then. Even today it’s somewhat difficult for locals to explain to “outsiders” that if you have a partner or family member who is LANL employed, you can’t really ask them details about what they do. Growing up, we used to joke about the grunt and nod and significant look language that seemed to develop when our parents or other adults got together. As though they were not talking about things just as often as they were discussing them.

During the Manhattan Project, employees couldn’t even tell their families why they were here or where, exactly, HERE was! There could be no mention of what was happening. They were given the explanation of being attached to the Engineering District and that it was aligned with the war effort and that was about it.

Communications could be conducted in English, French, German, italian, and Spanish. If you wanted to use another language, you had to get special permission from the Post Commander. No codes, ciphers, or any sort of secret writing was allowed. You couldn’t even use doodles, cross out words, or any other symbols. An ink stain probably would’ve gotten your letter returned to you.

One letter was returned to sender because the writer had attempted to use a humorous analogy about teaching employees to dance. Can you imagine what it would be like to move your family to the “ends of the Earth” and not be allowed to explain why or even what what happening on a day to day basis? Letters and packages had to be sent to the censors unsealed. No wrapping a birthday gift. No carefully arranging a holiday package.

PO Box 1663

Most of us have heard of PO Box 1663. But how weird would it feel to ask your mother to send your birthday cards to Mr. John Jones, PO Box 1663? There could be no use of any project personnel’s names in communications. Mr. John Jones of Santa Fe, NM was probably the most prolific correspondent in history!

Of course, as the population of technical staff, military and support personnel grew, there was a strong necessity of creating two more “dummy” post office boxes. One specifically for the military folks, and one for the civilian support staff. It became a hard and fast rule that sending and receiving mail was done through your assigned PO Box in order to keep the censorship staff on track. Sending a letter or package at that time was a bit like writing a paper and getting back the corrections until you’ve done it to the professor’s satisfaction! You can read more about the post office situation in a previous post HERE.

The Infamous Letter

Correspondence coming into Los Alamos was censored just as heavily as that going out. One story I find fascinating is of a rather infamous letter which remained a mystery for nearly 80 years!

Sgt Katherine “Pat” Patterson from Oxford, Mississippi was a WAC posted here in Los Alamos. Her brother Jim was stationed in France during the war and she corresponded with him. At one point she mentioned she was stationed somewhere northwest of Santa Fe and Jim send her a very interesting response. The following is an excerpt from Jim’s letter which is part of the archives in our local history museum.

“You ask how much I know about the place out there,” Jim wrote, adding, “you would be surprised.” He continued by asking a series of questions. “Has Bencis Gonzales in the PX there killed a deer yet? Is Ashley Pond frozen over? What does Peubelo Canyon look like? Do you ever ride a horse named Chili from the corral under the hill? I find out all these things by gazing into a big crystal ball.” He continued, “I know just how to get out to where you are. From Santa Fe to Pajaque, then left across the Rio Grande up Cubbra Hill, Otowi Hill, and past the Mesa.” His spelling was wrong in several instances, but it was clear enough to get the attention of the mail censors.

As you might imagine, the top brass grew VERY concerned! They asked Pat to send a letter back asking where her brother got this info. He didn’t seem to understand the problem and just kept telling her he and his “buddy” had looked into their crystal ball. Pat was informed she was no longer allowed to correspond with her brother while she was in Los Alamos, and the letter went into the archives and became one of unexplained mysteries of the war. Then Pat’s daughter, Debra, discovered her uncle Jim had been in France with a man named Collier Baird.

Baird had fought in the Battle of the Bulge and had lived to return home. He’d been stationed with Jim Patterson in France with Yankee Company during the war. But before that? Collier Baird was part of the last graduating class of the Los Alamos Ranch School! Baird knew all of those details about Los Alamos because he’d been here for years before Project Y took over the school and the Pajarito Plateau! You can read more about that story HERE.

You can find a lot more info about censorship in Los Alamos on the Historical Museum Blog HERE. And if you’re ready to change up your living situation here in Los Alamos, give me a call! There are some really amazing properties for sale in Los Alamos and this could be the perfect time to discover your dream home just waiting for you on a quiet street full of gorgeous scenery and interesting history! I’m a Los Alamos native and I love to help folks discover Los Alamos!

If you’ve spent much time in Los Alamos, (or if you’re like me and your family has been here for generations), you might take a tiny Northern New Mexico town perched on the Pajarito Plateau for granted when you think about the location of a National Laboratory.

Sometimes I marvel at the sheer number of out of state cars and obvious rental vehicles parked around town while their drivers walk wide eyed up and down Central Avenue between museums. Meanwhile folks who come for a peek scratch their heads in amazement at the sheer isolation and lack of hotels, restaurants, and “touristy” things to do. And that’s in modern times. Can you even begin to imagine what it was like back in the 1940s? Los Alamos isn’t the sort of place you accidentally drive through. You aren’t likely to stumble upon it now any more so than you would have in the early 1900s. You have to WANT to go up to Los Alamos. The road doesn’t automatically take you there.

But seriously. Why Los Alamos? Surely in the 2,959,064.44 square miles of land that makes up the United States, there was another location that met the necessary requirements to host Project Y. There actually WAS another contender, one that will probably surprise you, but there was also a sort of “Project Y Wish List” that ruled out a lot of possible locations.

According to Toni Michnovicz Gibson’s and Jon Michnovicz’s book Los Alamos: 1944-1947, the list focused on seven different points:

• The population within 100 miles of the site had to be sparse, both for security purposes, and in case of an accident.
• Access by roads and railroads was necessary for bringing large amounts of personnel and material to the site.
• Housing facilities had to be immediately available to quarter the first personnel to arrive, and there needed to be room to grow quickly as the project proceeded.
• Some parts of the area had to be large enough to provide for adequate testing.
• The climate was to be mild enough to allow outdoor work to proceed throughout the winter.
• Water, electricity, and an adequate fuel supply had to be readily available.
• The ownership and/or easy acquisition of the land had to be considered.

Something that strikes me about the first six items on that list is that one requirement or another rules out a significant portion of our country. A climate mild enough to allow outdoor work to proceed throughout the winter. One only has to listen to the population of Los Alamos County lament that brief six inch snow of two weekends ago and you might entertain the idea that Los Alamos doesn’t meet that criteria.

Except, where else can you expect six inches of a spring snow to be gone without a trace in less than 72 hrs? And it isn’t that we don’t like the snow, rain, hail, and whatever other moisture we can expect. It’s that we’re used to something like 300 days a year of sunlight, good weather, and outdoor fun! Even when the monsoon rains were coming down hard and as predictable as clockwork, the fact that they were predictable and short made it perfect for outdoor work of many kinds!

We are truly blessed in our climate. While there have been some shifts in the last several decades, most homes in Los Alamos did not need much beyond a few fans in the summer even into the 2000s. Passive solar has always been a wonderful and surprisingly effective way to heat your Los Alamos home. One homeowner on Barranca Mesa even installed climate controlled electric blinds which would go up and down throughout the day based on a thermostat to keep the home at the desired temperature in all four seasons while utilizing next to nothing beyond the sun and a bank of east facing windows.

However, if you look again at the list, it strikes me that AJ Connell was the one who prepped Los Alamos for the Manhattan Project without even realizing it. Connell and the ranch school staff had carried on HH Brooks’ task of improving available water sources, establishing generators to provide electricity, and shaping the land into a self sustaining compound. Connell proved beyond doubt that structures could go up and down and be repurposed, reused, renovated, and revamped for whatever next task they needed to do. The fact that Fuller Lodge was Connell’s pet project and is still the centerpiece of life in Los Alamos today is a stunning testament to the Ranch School’s unknowing contribution to the project.

The plateau’s wide cleared land for farming and ranching provided ample space for both temporary and permanent structures as well as technical areas and locations for testing that could be isolated from the population for safety purposes. Unless you’re entirely “in the know” these days, you might not even realize the amount of testing that still goes on right here on Lab property. Considering the boom in population between 1944 and 2024, the fact that Los Alamos STILL meets a lot of those criteria for a “secret city” is rather impressive.

Accessibility to Los Alamos wasn’t exactly pretty back in the 1940s. Many of the personnel who got off the Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe railroad in Lamy, NM often couldn’t believe they had hours yet of travel across rough ground before reaching the project site. But it was access to rail and road that the Army wanted. They didn’t necessarily want the railroad going through their secret camp.

The fact that this access was often gained through a detour through places like Espanola or the handful of Pueblo communities was considered a bonus. These were the small local communities asked from the very beginning to provide support staff and laborers. It’s a relationship that began with AJ Connell and Ashley Pond, continued through Project Y, and still continues today. Though in modern times it often feels like the outlying community members are tired of commuting and are moving UP the hill and those atop the plateau are wanting to sprawl out and have more space so are moving DOWN the hill. It’s a transition that never would’ve happened back in the early days, but now that there are no “official gates” into Los Alamos itself, it’s a possible one.

So where was the “other potential site” I mentioned earlier? I was kind of surprised to read in the Michnovicz book that Jemez Springs was considered to be a possible location for Los Alamos back in the day. It was accessible by road and via that road also had access to rail service. There were small rural ranching and pueblo communities to provide support staff and it’s certainly not readily accessible to the general public. Jemez Springs is also a place folks generally intend to visit and isn’t often stumbled upon by accident.

Eventually, the top brass chose Los Alamos over Jemez Springs because of the closeness of the mountains around the Jemez Springs location and lack of larger expanses of flat ground which were necessary for operations. It was decided the canyon location of the Springs was “too close” to provide the room necessary for the Manhattan Project’s needs.

So the next time you overhear a visitor or tourist commenting on the things we locals often wish we had too, (more restaurants, hotels, and shopping), offer a polite reminder that the lack of those things was literally what made Los Alamos THE perfect place to hide something so important and so vital to our history that people from all over the world still want to visit us over 80 years later! In a certain light, the lack of “modern conveniences” is exactly why they’ve come to Los Alamos.

However, what we do have is glorious weather, tons of sports, outdoor activities, four seasons of fun, great schools, community events, music, art, culture, and one of the most educated populations around. Kind of amazing, right? And when you’re ready to find yourself a “new to you” home or even a brand new home in Los Alamos, give me a call! There are some really great homes available here in Los Alamos and I would love to chat real estate in Los Alamos with you!

I think many of us find some humor in the idea that residents who’ve been here in Los Alamos since the late 80s and 90s remember Film Festival at Home as the place we stop to grab a video or a DVD to keep us occupied for the evening, while modern residents known Film Festival as a place to grab coffee and do their laundry. In a strange turn, many businesses in Los Alamos have done double or even triple duty over the years. Then again, Los Alamos has always been a place where businesses or even just a building make space for whatever our community needs. And back in the early days, even just the completion of everyday household tasks took an awful lot of ingenuity.

So You Want to Grocery Shop?

I think most of us have lamented the grocery shopping situation here in Los Alamos. We have a lovely Co-op, Natural Grocers, and two different Smith’s stores, but it always seems as though our community is getting less in the way of options and inconsistent availability of products between the stores.

Strangely enough, it used to be something of the opposite back during the Manhattan Project! Los Alamos had a commissary which was stocked by the military supply lines. Most of the shoppers were military personnel, but even the civilians were allowed to shop at the commissary thanks to the sometimes erratic working hours and the unreasonable expectation of having time to leave Los Alamos after working a long day on site.

Though the initial offerings of produce and other items were not of great quality, there were several memos from the management in Los Alamos to the Army distribution center in El Paso suggesting that Los Alamos residents should be given access to higher quality produce and other grocery items in order to encourage their motivation to keep plugging along on “the mission”.

That pattern continued as the project progressed. In a memo dated August 1944, the commissary in Los Alamos was asked to procure a wider variety of goods than were made available under Army regulations. Even with the rationing, it was decided that the population of Los Alamos needed to be given some perks to keep them productive and happy. This meant Los Alamos moms could pick up milk, Jell-O and other hard to find necessities at the local commissary.

So You Need to do Your Laundry?

Back to the task of doing laundry in early Los Alamos. It’s not easy to think back to what laundry facilities were like in the 1940s. In fact, the 1940s saw a huge change in the way folks did laundry. This short YouTube video offers a look into just how much time it took folks to wash their clothes back in those days!

Now, laundry facilities were something residents here in Los Alamos were always clamoring for more of. So by the summer of 1946, the laundries were all updated to the point where there were 36 machines available for the 6000 residents of the hill to utilize in keeping their clothing cleaned, pressed, and presentable.

I think it’s important to remember that clothing back then was different as well. Uniforms and work clothes required pressing. Back then you would rent an electric iron for $0.30 per hour. That was if you wanted to iron by hand. You could also use a machine called a “mangle” which had two heated rollers and would press your larger items at the cost of $0.40 per hour.

Many folks who could would hang their clothes out on a line to dry. But that didn’t alleviate the need to press them! Can you imagine in our world today if you actually had to iron all of your clothing? We are so used to wash and wear fabrics for most of our clothing that it would likely feel like a return to the Dark Ages to have to iron each day’s outfit for every member of the family!

So You Need to Send a Letter?

We’ve discussed the importance of Post Office Box 1663. And I’m sure most of you are fully aware of the incredible level of censorship going on back then. The security handbook at the time stated specifically that personnel, professions, numbers of people, size and scope of the Project, and even opinions and rumors could not be revealed or commented upon. Before long, the 6000 strong population had outgrown PO Box 1663 and two more “boxes” were created.

PO Box 1539 was a “regular mail service” box and PO Box 180 was mostly for military personnel. Sorting, censoring, and delivering mail was one of the most complicated processes of the Manhattan Project. In previous posts, we’ve talked about the enormous volume of catalogs delivered to Los Alamos residents. The ridiculous number of scientific magazines sent to one address. The huge number of library books ordered to PO Box 1663 from the central lending library in Santa Fe. Mail indicates population and that was a big worry of officials of the project.

With that in mind, military and civilian residents were asked not to mail anything that they could hand deliver around town themselves. Christmas Cards were an especially big concern. In 1946 Norris Bradbury and Colonel Herbert Gee themselves made a request that residents hand deliver their cards as much as possible in a way that prevented the holiday greetings from clogging up the mail clerks’ task lists!

So You Want to Look Good for the Weekend?

Considering many folks in the early days were living in barracks, doubling up in Sundt Apartments, bunking in McKeeville, or even living in a camper, places to spruce up your personal looks with frequent hair washings, barber services, and even the nail salons were in high demand here in Los Alamos. Several early residents recall there being so few barbers in the early days of the project that the Tech Area guys got a barber chair and honed their barbering skills on each other. But that doesn’t sound like a solution for the ladies, does it?

It didn’t take long for barber and beauty shops to set up in the Service Club, the Military Police Exchange (MPX), and the Special Engineering Detachment’s Club (SED PX). The SED barber was so efficient he won a $50 bet for proving he could complete 12 haircuts in an hour. For reference, the average cost of a haircut at that time was twenty-five cents so a $50 bonus was an enormous amount of money!

I hope you’re noticing that there is a certain ebb and flow to life in Los Alamos. In some ways, our retail markets are a bit like the weather. Just wait a bit and it will change so entirely you hardly remember what came before! For now, I’d encourage all of you to get outside in Los Alamos and enjoy this glorious spring weather we’re having! Whether you’re already a resident or looking to find your home here in our lovely community on the Pajarito Plateau, give me a call! I’d love to talk with you about housing in Los Alamos!

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!

Why do people stay here in Los Alamos? I think that’s something newcomers or visitors often wonder. As you might imagine, I hear a lot of first impressions of the town from my clients as they search for a home to fit their needs. Many of the initial thoughts aren’t that flattering. The first thing that begins to shift their perception is how beautiful it is here. No matter how much you dislike the lack of restaurants or shopping, very few people have anything negative to say about the scenery. But the natural beauty of this place seems to soak slowly into the newcomers. While they are house hunting, they might be uncertain about whether or not they plan to stay. Oftentimes when I meet up with them again in months or even years, their opinion has changed.

Enchanted

What happens to change opinions about life in Los Alamos between first impressions and the decision to stay in town for pretty much the rest of someone’s life? I think the image below explains a lot! For the record, this is a photo of the Valle Caldera. Folks living in Los Alamos weren’t allowed access to this area for recreation or any other reason until the year 2000 when Congress purchased the Baca ranch and created a National Park.

Steak Parties

Okay. I’ll admit. I was a bit baffled by this concept. According to Images of America: Los Alamos 1944-1947, when the residents in Los Alamos were a bit frustrated with living on top of each other and being stressed about making progress on the Manhattan Project, they liked to drive, ride horseback, or hike a short way into the surrounding area to get away. And often this event included steak.

Sports on the Plateau

I’ve spoken in the past about the long history of baseball in Los Alamos. But you don’t have to hang about in town for long to see that we really enjoy our sports. In fact, Los Alamos has always been a place for sporting.

During the war years, the Army encouraged organized sports as much as they encouraged their GIs and civilians to set up pickup games of softball and football. Once the war was over, there was an organized softball league. Men and women set up teams with names like the Exploders, the Plutons, the Bombers, and even the Sad Sockers. Each week the Los Alamos Times would publish batting averages and team standings.

Los Alamos has always enjoyed winter sports. The Ranch School had already made a place to ice skate and had cleared some runs for skiing, activities that have never ceased to be favorites in the winter months. In the second winter of the project, as more Europeans joined the community, skiing took on a whole new importance as the Sawyer’s Hill Ski Tow Association was created. Eventually this group developed into the Pajarito Ski Club, which many people still know today.

While our golf course and horse stables are not in any way connected these days, that didn’t used to be the case. The original stables/golf course was the giant meadow which later became Western Area. Notice the split rail fencing in the background of the photo of the two golfing gentlemen? It was agreed upon that most of the course was sand trap…because it was a horse pasture…and golfers had to climb onto the “greens” as they were fenced off to keep the horses from munching the better grass. I often picture the horses watching humans smacking little balls around their pasture with great amusement!

Just about everyone rode horses in the early days of Los Alamos. The military acquired the ranch school stock when they purchased the land, buildings, and machinery. These horses were for public use, but it didn’t take long for many families to purchase their own horses. Horses were acquired in much the same way they are today. Someone tells someone else they have one they’re selling and a deal is made! Eleanor Jette tells in her book of finding maps in one of the abandoned cabins which opened the entirety of the trails to riders and hikers. Residents weren’t allowed to drive to Santa Fe but once a month. If you wanted to ride the trail to Caballo Mountain every day of the week, nobody would tell you no. In much the same way they do for local equestrians today, horses equalled freedom to the residents of Los Alamos!

Exploring the Past

Another popular activity was a continuation of something the boys of the ranch school had also enjoyed. Nowadays we are encouraged to view the native ruins dotting our landscape. You can head to Bandelier, Tsankawi, or the Puye Cliffs to hike and climb the ladders as long as you stay on the path. Back in the 1940s, folks were free to hike out, climb around, experiment with amateur archaeology, and generally poke about in whatever manner interested them!

As with any population of young men and women, Los Alamos soon became a hotbed of dating, marriage, and babies during the Manhattan Project era. It actually reminds me a bit of the “romances” that seem to happen all throughout history on the wagon train trails, long voyages on ships, and in tiny communities all over the world. Being thrown together for a single purpose (work!?) never stops the social scene from happening in the background. Evidently, the male to female ratio in those days wasn’t all that unlike the one today. The was reported to be one woman for every ten men!

Wedding Fever!

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that weddings happened in Los Alamos about as often as sunrise and sunset! Sources say weddings were typically held in Theaters No. 1 and No. 2, the chapel, the chaplain’s office, in churches in the surrounding communities and even in private homes! The couple below is preparing for communion during their Catholic Wedding Mass in Theater No. 1.

One of the popular beverages in Los Alamos back in those days was called Tech Area Punch. This mixed concoction was usually flavored heavily by grapefruit juice. But we’ll talk more about that in a future post. You can see from the happy faces, the elegant little wedding cake, and the enormous punch bowl that weddings were a wonderful social event!

I hope you’ve noticed that the topic of “things to do in Los Alamos” hasn’t actually changed all that much between the ranch school days and right now. Next time we’re going to take a dive into the Los Alamos Nightlife! (Yes, that’s actually a thing!) Until then, I hope you get outside with your favorite family, friends, coworkers, fellow club members, and anyone else who shares your passion for this place and all it has to offer. And when you’re ready to talk homes and real estate in Los Alamos, give me a call! I’m a hometown girl who always has time to talk housing in Los Alamos!

As you might imagine, I have a LOT of conversations with clients about the commute up to Los Alamos and ways to get around town. These are all big questions that make a huge impact on folks’ decision to purchase a home in the county. As I’ve been thumbing my way through so many of the cool books on Los Alamos History you can find in our local Historical Museum Shop, I came across some interesting photos and information about that same topic. I think what strikes me most is that we have far more independence and even options today than the those who were contemplating these things in the mid to late 1940s.

The Commute

First of all, getting up to Los Alamos wasn’t exactly a picnic. The military was making improvements to the access roads on an almost constant basis. The Otowi suspension bridge across the Rio Grande required a nearly 90 degree turn from the road to access. The roads were dirt and gravel and prone to washouts and all kinds of weather related mess with potholes and mud. If you’ve ever driven into Rendija Canyon, that’s probably a similar experience to what the first drivers were dealing with.

The Bus to Los Alamos!

Not unlike our NM Park & Ride, the bus to Los Alamos which carried workers up to the Hill traveled a 50 mile trip through Espanola, Chimayo, and the San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, and Tesuque Pueblos. There was also a bus to Santa Fe. Anyone traveling the road to Los Alamos had to have identification and approval from the military. MPs were responsible for checking ids and sources suggest that by 1946 there were approximately 500 people on 43 buses making daily trips to both Santa Fe and the surrounding areas!

What sort of workers were bussed in from these areas? Commuters in those days were the folks who might not have been project connected, but were critical to operations in the Secret City. Clerks, cooks, food service workers, mechanics, custodians, and other important folks were given free bus service so that they could commute from their homes in outlying areas to the Hill on a nearly daily basis. But if you were working for the Manhattan Project in any way, you weren’t eligible to live off post. You needed to be on site. Whether you had a family or were single, your job determined where you could live. Single person wanting a little piece of quiet property and a small casita in the valley? Too bad! You got a cramped room in a dormitory.

White Rock

We’ve actually talked about White Rock in the past. You can check out that blog post HERE. It was first slapped together as a place to house construction workers beginning in 1949. That meant if you were attached to those construction projects, you couldn’t pick a commute either. White Rock was where you were and that was that!

Traffic in Los Alamos

Check out this photo from Images of America: Los Alamos 1944-1947. The Los Alamos Trading Post can be seen on the left. This is actually a photo of Central Avenue in 1946. Public opinion was that a MP was needed to direct traffic at this, the busiest intersection in Los Alamos. If you think lunchtime traffic is tricky in 2025, imagine what it was like back then! There was zero distance between the technical areas, (located at Ashley Pond) and downtown Los Alamos.

It’s important to remember that, “this little town was just full of young women and men. As the population soared toward 6,000 in 1944-1945, small groups of GIs, WACs, and civilians were visible everywhere, heading out together for one social event or another”(Los Alamos 1944-1947).

This statement actually sounds very familiar. Los Alamos is nothing if not eclectic when it comes to the distribution of age groups here in town. A distribution that is heavily affected by things like summer students and snowbirds! And all of these folks are looking for something fun to keep them occupied when they aren’t working.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this trip down memory lane. Our community here in the Secret City is unique in so many ways. But a lot of things we consider quirky about life in Los Alamos have been going on for so long, it’s hard to imagine life any other way! When you’re ready to talk housing in Los Alamos, give me a call! I’d love to chat Quads, Duplexes, and Modified Westerns with you as you discover all of the amazing living options Los Alamos has to offer!