What’s With White Rock?

Los Alamos County is unique. No doubt about it. There are bits and pieces of local life that are so “normal” to those of use who have lived in Los Alamos County for a long time. Those same bits and pieces make the newbies scratch their heads with wonder. No doubt one of those “bits and pieces” happens to be White Rock itself. How on earth did a town that isn’t a town spring up on a scrap of land that is so difficult to develop that modern construction methods have spent the last several years blasting the ground and missing deadlines just to put a few fairly simple houses on the acreage between the White Rock Visitor Center and the Grand Canyon/State Road 4 intersection?

Here are few things to keep in mind:

White Rock began life in 1949 as a hastily slapped together development to house construction workers. No kidding folks, there were around four hundred prefabricated houses, spaces for privately owned trailers, and some dormitories. Homes weren’t wired for phone service and one of the big bragging points was that they had a gas range for cooking!

In Craig Martin’s fascinating book, Quads Shoeboxes and Sunken Living Rooms, he relates a story about a young boy who was burned in a kitchen fire. The poor mother couldn’t call for help, couldn’t access the family car because it was with her husband at work, and waited hours for her child to get treatment. “In the Los Alamos News the next day town managers said the proper way to summon emergency help in White Rock was to pull the nearest fire alarm.”

And yet, even in this rural “overnight town”, there was a commercial section of town that included a grocery store, a beauty shop, a barber, a doctor’s office, and a jail. There was also a school and a post office. Why did the 2400 residents of 1950’s White Rock get all the good stuff? Because the construction crews didn’t have a clearance and therefore could NOT get into Los Alamos to shop on the hill.

The entire development was situated on the land between Joya Loop, Rover Blvd, and State Road 4. The single family homes were literally referred to as “shoeboxes”. Yep. That’s right. Shoeboxes. By the winter of 1957 the new construction at the National Laboratory was done and there was nothing left of White Rock but a few empty streets. The prefab houses had been sold and moved elsewhere.

By 1959 the “critical housing shortage” in Los Alamos brought the Atomic Energy Commission back to the idea of developing White Rock. This time they proposed to Washington that they sell the property to a private developer. Two hundred acres to start, a thousand acres more in the future at (this will make you cry) a whopping $25.00 per acre. Houses were supposed to be in the $15,000 range to accommodate lower income home buyers. (Talk about appreciation!)

Sounds brilliant, right? Wrong! The FHA deemed White Rock to be too rural to offer mortgage insurance to home buyers. The whole project would have been scrapped if it weren’t for a bill introduced to Congress by then NM Senator Clinton Anderson. John McCone, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, pushed hard and in November 1960 President Eisenhower signed a bill to offer FHA mortgages in remote areas to promote growth and development. By the end of the month, developers were making bids to make White Rock a reality.

By January 1961, the contract was awarded to Los Angeles based Noxon Construction and folks here locally were perusing floor plans and looking at options for exterior and interior finishes. The cost of the homes was $19,000, but an agreement from the local utility companies to pay for the installation cut the costs by $4,000. But that was only the beginning of the story. See if this doesn’t sound familiar.

Craig Martin writes, “the Noxon construction project was fraught with troubles from the start. The dense, hard basalt just under the surface proved more difficult and expensive to work with than first expected. Street and utility construction progressed slowly. Noxon soon felt that meeting the 200-house stipulation of the contract would be impossible.”

Martin goes on to talk about Noxon barely breaking even on the homes and eventually being fined by the AEC for failure to complete his promised 200 homes. Noxon gave up the contract, two other builders from Santa Fe and Roswell took up the torch in 1964, and White Rock was eventually considered a permanent development and an alternative to living in Los Alamos.

The interesting thing about the original “Master Plan” for White Rock was that it included a police station, commercial center, golf course, an elementary, junior high, and high school. These were considered the necessary amenities of a town in post-war America. For those of us living in White Rock, we would heartily agree that those things are necessary. We just can’t seem to get anything to stick around!

Those of you who haven’t been in our area for long might not realize the various amenities that have come and gone from White Rock. The shopping center is where Gordon’s began. In the late eighties kids rode their bikes up to Gordon’s for ice cream and to buy the latest cassette tapes. WaterMills offered gifts and a full selection of Jelly Belly Jellybeans.

At one time we had a bowling alley. In other years residents could enjoy watching a movie at The White Roxy or renting one at The Film Festival. There have been many versions of the drug store, classic supermarkets, a Pizza Hut, a McDonald’s, and dozens of restaurants that have come and gone.

So, as we all continue to ponder the future of White Rock and pine away for things like fast food chains and shopping, let’s take a moment to be glad for what we have. After all, nobody is telling you to pull the nearest fire alarm and wait for the fire crews up in Los Alamos to get here. In fact, we have a beautiful fire station, a fantastic branch of the local library, and a Visitor’s Center that sports a packed parking lot through most of the summer (in normal years of course).

Things will change. White Rock will continue to change. And our remote village will discover a new identity for all of us to enjoy. And if you happen to be looking for real estate in White Rock, give me a call. I’d love to show you around.