The Harold H. Brook homestead in Los Alamos. Brook's mother is standing on the porch.
Hispanics who had already run cattle in the area staked out 160-acre farms, often building one-room log cabins to “prove up” their claims. The homesteaders generally used the cabins as summer homes, grazing their cattle on the cool plateau and retreating to the Rio Grande valley when winter came.
One of the homesteaders, Harold H. Brook, sold his land and buildings to the Los Alamos Ranch School soon after it began. Others lived on the plateau in harmony with the boys' school for its 25-year existance.
The federal government used its powers of eminent domain to take over the homesteads for the Manhattan Project in 1942. Many owners received some payment but some received none because they failed to make the 85-mile trek to the Sandoval County Courthouse each year to pay their property taxes.
The homesteaders received between $7 and $15 per acre while the Ranch School received $225 per acre. Concerned about the lack of fairness when this information was finally disclosed in 1961, homesteaders and their heirs petitioned the federal government for a just assessment. In 2004, Congress established a $10 million fund to pay the homesteaders’ descendents a fairer share for their land.
Romero Cabin before it was moved to the Los Alamos Historic District. |
Today, the Romero cabin, relocated from Los Alamos National Laboratory to near Fuller Lodge in the 1980s, is the only remaining homesteaders cabin. The others that had survived burned during the Cerro Grande Fire in May 2000. The Los Alamos Historical Society is in the process of restoring the cabin with a grant from the state of New Mexico. The Los Alamos Historical Society has publications with more information on the Homestead era, such as Los Alamos, New Mexico: A Survey to 1949. Please visit our shopping cart for more information. |
