If your current living situation isn’t what you wish it was, it’s so easy to feel as though you’re the only one searching for your dream home. This isn’t true of course. But our emotions don’t usually follow logical patterns of thought. Obviously you’re not the only one looking for your dream house because if you were, it wouldn’t be a big deal to find it. And if you’ve been putting in offers on potential homes and haven’t had your offer chosen, there’s a good chance you’re not alone. There are probably a dozen other potential home buyers who were disappointed that day too. What if there were 214 potentially disappointed home buyers? What if you were one of 215 families on a waiting list for housing here in Los Alamos? In 1946 that’s exactly how long the waiting list at the Los Alamos housing office was!
1946 was the year he MED (Manhattan Engineer District) contracted to build the Western Area neighborhood. It was supposed to be the ultimate answer to the housing crisis in Los Alamos. Except that the potential occupants had more than a few gripes about construction that they wanted addressed. By the time a task force from Washington DC was called out, the whole thing took a lot longer than anyone anticipated. You can read about more about that here. In the meantime, the MED started to get a bit anxious about that waiting list for housing. Losing the Laboratory workforce due to housing issues might impact the work. And as anyone who has been around Los Alamos knows, nothing gets LANL moving more than the possibility of inconvenience to the work!
There were several stopgap housing solutions. I’ve been blogging about these temporary neighborhoods for the last few weeks now. You can go back and read about “Morganville“, “McKeeville“, and the “Denver Metals” by following these links. There’s another stopgap housing neighborhood I touched on briefly, but these little beauties deserve a little more explaining. “Hanfordville”, as the Army newspaper the Daily Bulletin dubbed it, was made up of 107 prefab “homes” that arrived in Los Alamos after being moved from Hanford, Washington.
The blocky one and two bedroom units had been assembled in 1943 to house construction crews working at the MED’s plutonium facility. The workers were no longer needed as the Hanford Reactors were completed. The construction camp at Hanford was deconstructed in 1946-47. You might say that the MED needed to do something with the little camp houses so they figured they might as well bring them to Los Alamos. Another common name for the Hanford Houses back in 1946 were the Pasco Houses. Pasco was another town in Washington State where constructions crews for the reactor site were housed. If you haven’t ever looked into the link between Hanford, Washington and Los Alamos, you should. Did you know they have their own Manhattan Project Museum?
With diesel fuel currently rising to nearly six dollars a gallon, it would be difficult to decide whether fuel costs or the price of construction materials would determine the practicality of such a solution these days. But back in 1946 the MED decided it wasn’t such a big deal to commission 214 tractor trailers with flatbeds to bring 107 prefab houses nearly 1300 miles to be reassembled. Each Hanford house had to be broken into two parts for transport. It must’ve been a crazy sight!
Over the years Los Alamos has seen some amazing things go up and down the narrow twisting road up from the canyon floor to the top of the mesa. Remember though, when early contractors were tasked with building the Laboratory facilities back in the early forties, their first chore was to somehow build a road to haul all of their construction crews and supplies up the hill.
Before that, in the days of the Ranch School, there were several other options for supply roads. Historical sites in Bayo Canyon and out on Kwage Mesa show evidence of wagon trails from early homesteaders on the Pajarito Plateau. Seen in this light, the MED must have been fairly desperate for quick housing solutions to consider this an acceptable stopgap solution.
Regardless of the cost, the MED moved 107 Hanford houses to Los Alamos in 1946. A good number of the homes were assembled in the vicinity of Kiva and Iris Streets. Today this is in the general vicinity of the Iris Street Condos. The others were placed along 10th Street, Canyon and Rim Roads. “Hanfordville” was right next to “McKeeville”, which was next to “Morganville”. A likely question when you made a new acquaintance in Los Alamos in those days was “Where do you live?”. Your answer would probably be met with either envy or commiseration. After all, housing woes in Los Alamos are what made us all equal back then and even now.
Whether your Hanford House had a one bedroom or a two bedroom floorplan, you were guaranteed the same basics. You got a combination living room and kitchen. There was even a swing curtain you could put between the two in order to keep “cooking odors” out of the living room. The bathroom had a shower, a sink, and a toilet. And your bedroom or bedroom(s) were tucked into the end of the unit with barely enough space for a double bed and a dresser.
Residents were strangely positive about a few amenities we would almost certainly take for granted these days. An oil stove in the family room heated the entire living space and each unit had a three burner electric stove and a “modern” electric refrigerator. Considering the rationing of electricity in Los Alamos during the war years, that electric stove was living large in those days. Remember that prior to this, electric hot plates had to be purchased on the black market. Such different times!
The Hanford Homes weren’t super popular. In fact the quote was “they’re considered solid shelter”, which is rather frightening if you think about it. Perhaps keeping people’s expectations low means they are more satisfied with less. Another quote from an interview between writer Craig Martin and former Hanford resident Hal Kerr was that “the only problem was that when a driving rain came from the west, the place leaked like a sieve.”. Perhaps not a huge deal in all seasons, but considering the terrific monsoon rains we’ve been getting in the last few weeks, a dry roof over your head can become really important at times.
The Hanford Homes were never meant to be permanent. Thankfully we’re not seeing them on the current MLS and you’re not likely to be shopping for modern appliances that might possibly be compatible with your Hanford. They’re a part of our past and perhaps a good reminder that no matter how crazy we think the real estate market is here in in Los Alamos, it’s not nearly as nuts as it back when it all started. In fact, if you’re ready to talk modern real estate in Los Alamos, give me a call! I’m your hometown real estate broker. I’d love to chat about your home in Los Alamos.
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