All villages, towns, and cities have neighborhoods with names that go way back. Most of these names made perfect sense in the beginning, but the meanings might have been lost over time for any number of reasons. Los Alamos has more than a few oddly named neighborhoods. After all, our most historic area of town is called “Bathtub Row”. But another one of my all time favorites is the “Denver Steels” neighborhood tucked just behind Los Alamos High School on Pueblo Mesa. Believe it or not, the Denver Steels has the dubious honor of being one of the very first single family home neighborhoods in Los Alamos County.
There are a lot of myths about how the Denver Steels got to Los Alamos. Really though, they aren’t myths so much as blended stories about early housing solutions proposed and executed in an effort to ease the housing crisis in Post War Los Alamos.
Myth #1
The homes were shipped here from the Washington State area. I’ve even heard a variation where they were the previous dwellings of steel workers in Washington State, hence the Denver Steels name. Of course, this myth makes no mention of how the word “Denver” came into play.
The truth is that there were temporary houses shipped to Los Alamos from Washington State. The Manhattan Engineer District, or MED, was in charge of operations in 1946. While the Western Area was being built, which was a whole other hassle we’ll talk about some other time, the MED brought 107 “houses” from their plutonium facility in Hanford, WA to Los Alamos. The homes were placed along 10th Street, Rim Road, and Canyon Road. I don’t know about you, but I seriously wish I could’ve been witness to the caravan of 214 flatbed trailers trucking up the Main Hill Road, each with half a Hanford Home strapped onboard. What a sight!
Myth #2
The Denver Steels were originally military troop housing on a base somewhere else in the US. Maybe Denver? There are certainly a number of potential military installations in the Colorado region to choose from. But this myth is once again, not a myth, but a truth based upon another temporary housing solution from our past.
The military installation was Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and the units were duplexes, triplexes, and quadraplexes. There were 270 units of these wood framed domiciles and honestly they looked like military housing. Each individual “pod” was 672 square feet. The structures were placed on Canyon Road, Manhattan Loop, and what used to be M, O, & P Streets in 1947. Currently those areas are in the vicinity of Myrtle and Pine Streets. At the time of their initial usage, these homes were considered the most desirable housing in Los Alamos. Yet the major complaint was that people wanted single family housing. Sound familiar?
The Real Story
In late 1947 the Army authorized the purchase of housing for the military officers still stationed here in Los Alamos. At that time there were a lot of pre fab housing experiments going on in the US. You can check out my Lustron Homes post if you want to read more about that. But this shouldn’t be a surprise if you think about it. This was Post War America, the Baby Boomer generation was being born. Families wanted the American Dream they’d fought so hard for and they wanted it now! So the pre fab housing boom created some really interesting options.
Enter the Denver Steels. Or rather, the Denver Metals, as they were originally known. These units had steel I-beam framing and aluminum siding. They were fabricated by a steel company in Denver, Colorado and shipped in pieces to Los Alamos where they were assembled in record time.
It might surprise you to know that the first 39 of these homes were actually placed over on Rim Road and Quartz not far from the other temporary housing brought to Los Alamos. Perhaps that’s where the myths got jumbled together. None of those 39 original Denver Steels are still around. They went the way of the Hanford homes and the Fort Leonard Wood multi units.
There were originally 251 Denver Steels ordered, but only 200 of them managed to be carefully situated onto Pueblo Mesa. Of those 200, half were reserved for the new civilian security inspectors coming into town. Craig Martin’s book on housing in Los Alamos doesn’t specify where the missing 12 were placed. But it’s probable that they were near the original 39 in an area that underwent multiple overhauls. Truthfully, the Denver Steels weren’t intended to be long term housing options for families in Los Alamos.
The original units were 718 square feet. Every home had two bedrooms and one bathroom and there was no bathtub. Only a shower. There were two models available from the company. The Marquette and the Columbine. Strangely, there were only 2 Marquettes ordered. The rest of the homes were the Columbine model and considering the minimal differences between the two, trying to find those two Marquettes would be like chasing the proverbial needle in the haystack. The most memorable feature of the Denver Steels wasn’t a feature at all. It was the fact that the all metal construction created a bizarre situation of simultaneous sweating and freezing in the wintertime. This resulted in the exterior walls being coated with ice. It would be interesting to know if this worked like natural insulation or not. But considering the mass amount of renovating, remodeling, and updating that has gone on in the Denver Steels in the last 75 years, it would be unlikely that any of the homes still have that unique problem.
Truly, the renaissance of the Denver Steels has been incredible. The area has long been considered a “starter” home neighborhood here in Los Alamos because of the modest square footage of the homes and the reasonable pricing. But some of the remodels have nearly doubled the 718 sq ft homes and in the last two years some of the sale prices of these beautifully updated homes have rivaled those of other “higher end” neighborhoods in town.
Though many of the updated versions of the Denver Steels have been added onto, it is sometimes still possible to see the ghost of the original construction if you know what you’re looking for. Take a tour of the neighborhood sometime and you’ll get a peek at the wonderful creativity and ingenuity of homeowners throughout the years.
As always, Craig Martin’s book, Quads, Shoeboxes and Sunken Living Rooms: A History of Los Alamos Housing, has been an invaluable and fascinating resource for this post. If you haven’t already, you should pick one up from the Historical Society’s Website. It’s a great resource for anyone who loves the uniqueness of Los Alamos, or even if it drives you nuts! And as always, if you’re ready to talk Real Estate in Los Alamos, I’m your hometown Real Estate Broker. Give me a call! I’d love to talk with you!
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