 Did you see the article about us in the Daily Post?
We had some very special guests in our archives on March 24th. Some of the remaining family of George T. May III (nicknamed Tertius) visited our archives with a donation. For decades, the family has kept Tertius’ items from his years at the Los Alamos Ranch School. George Thomas May III was born in 1903. According to his niece, “Terk was a sickly child who suffered from severe asthma and spent much of his childhood in Illinois as an invalid”. Because there were not many effective treatments for those suffering with asthma, many were sent away from home to Western states that had cleaner air. Terk was sent to Los Alamos in 1919 at the age of 15. A letter from A. J. Connell, who was the director of the Los Alamos Ranch School, dated October 7th, 1919 states that “He has not had any asthma since the little attack I told you of when he first came here, His weight is now 85 pounds, a gain of 9 pounds since his arrival June 16th. He also shows 1.2 inch gain in height. He shows slight gains in practically all measurements and much in endurance.” Several accommodations were given to Terk during his time in Los Alamos, and there is only one known mention of Terk needing medical assistance from somewhere offsite of the Los Alamos Ranch.
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 Did you know that Los Alamos was the only county in the state of New Mexico to participate in Daylight Savings Time (DST) for many years?
 This image was taken during the Ranch School era. The camera is facing East and you may recognize the two parallel roads. Be sure to notice where these roads merge together in the distance. Downtown Los Alamos revolves around two roads, Trinity Drive and Central Avenue. These two roads run parallel to each other and they handle a majority of the traffic for everyday Los Alamos. Our small businesses, restaurants, and some of our residences rely on these roads. When one of them requires construction, the town is thrown into an uproar because our ‘traffic’ builds up for several blocks, blocking the ease of flow for the town.
A little known fact is that these streets have been here almost as long as the town has! Granted, there have been a few bends here and there, but the overall location and direction has remained the same since the era of the Los Alamos Ranch School (1917 to 1943). We remember the Trinity test as the changing point for the future of weapons development and the course of the Second World War. The basic details are frequently talked about; it was the first major test of the implosion design, it was successful, it occurred on July 16th 1945, etc, but the steps taken in preparation for this test are not often discussed.
A test explosion was conducted in May of 1945 at Trinity site to do a dry run with the measurement and photographic equipment. 100 tons of TNT were detonated 20 feet off the group atop of a wooden structure. The test was a success, although the explosion was about a 20th in size in comparison to the well known explosion that would take place 2 months later. Living on the Los Alamos Plateau always brings forth curiosities, but some of the biggest ones are our local Ancestral Puebloan Sites. No matter where you are in town you will be within a several hundred-foot proximity to ones of these sites, or at least where one used to be. Excavations and preservation efforts have been conducted in Los Alamos for over 100 years.
One of the largest sites within our county is the Ancestral Puebloan Site named Otowi, also claimed to have been called Potsuwi’I which means ‘gap where the water sinks’. Acquired from some old newspaper publications, one of the first excavations of this location started in 1915 by a woman named Lucy Langdon Williams Wilson. She was the principal of a school in Philadelphia and her husband ran the Philadelphia Commercial Museum. With some basic paperwork and a 3-year governmental permit, they set out west to excavate Otowi. This month we are exploring #InsideTheArchives to rediscover a lost Los Alamos locale: Higgins Park. Do you recognize the name? Have you heard stories of this Manhattan Project-era park?  The stairway leading from the mesa top to the MP picnic area in 1945 or 1946. Bingham Collection, Los Alamos Historical Society Photo Archives. If you have lived in Los Alamos for very long, then it is likely you have run into someone who has used a building as a landmark when giving you directions. Now, whether that building is still in existence or the business names they use still occupy the space is a different story entirely. It could be “turn by the Conoco hill gas station,” or “just past the Hill Diner,” or “where the Los Alamos Inn used to be.” Whatever it may be, landmark buildings are a guidepost for our everyday lives. This month we’re digging #InsideTheArchives to a landmark that stands at the entrance to Los Alamos, welcoming visitors and locals alike: the Hilltop House Motel. The Hilltop House Motel was built in the mid-1970s and had significant additions, such as a restaurant, made to it in 1980–1981. The Hilltop House’s annex was added in the mid/late 1980s and was just across Central Ave. The business closed in 2013 and the building has changed hands a couple times, but remains vacant at this time. What are your memories of the Hilltop House Motel? Did you ever stay there? Did you eat at one of the restaurants housed there (can you remember their names)? Help us bring this Los Alamos landmark to life with your stories in the comments. Click "Read More" to see more photos and share your memories.  The Hilltop House in the winter of 1983–1984. Waterman Collection, Los Alamos Historical Society Photo Archives. Come Inside the Archives with us this month to check out one of our most recent donations. These images are digitized copies of some of the slides donated by Betty Pickens Cabber, the daughter of Homer and Edna Pickens. Can you help us identify any of the people (or animals) in these photos?  Homer Pickens took this photo of the deer crate with kids gathered around sometime in the mid-1960s. Cabber Collection, Los Alamos Historical Society Archives. Los Alamos has many treasured community members, one of whom is Bun Ryan (Dec. 23, 1923-Sept. 29, 2014) who was named a Living Treasure of Los Alamos in 1999. Bun Ryan is famous in Los Alamos for his fast pitches as part of the Pierotti’s Clowns, but his contributions to Los Alamos history don’t end there.  Bun Ryan, Verdie Raper, and Lou Pierotti (left to right) sign softballs for the opening of the Los Alamos Historical Museum exhibit “Pierotti’s Clowns” in August 1998. Los Alamos Historical Society Photo Archives.  Los Alamos Historical Society Executive Director Elizabeth Martineau in the Victory Garden behind the Hans Bethe House on Bathtub Row. Enterprise Bank’s support helped create this garden open daily to the public. Photo by Gordon McDonough By SHARON SNYDER
Los Alamos Historical Society The Los Alamos Historical Society is planting a victory garden for the second year in a row, an effort that connects us to the Manhattan Project years and the World War II era. It is a living connection not only to Los Alamos history but also to our national history. The term victory garden dates back to World War I, when Americans were asked to grow “War Gardens”, but after the war, when the government encouraged the continuation of producing food in home gardens, the name changed to “Victory Gardens”. With the advent of a second world war, the idea was resurrected. The planning of personal gardens to help with the production of food was in full swing again by 1943, with approximately 20 million victory gardens planted. The national promotion of the gardens was handled by the Department of Agriculture, and despite the fact that most of the citizen gardeners were unskilled, they managed to raise approximately 8 million tons of food. The following year, they produced 40 percent of the vegetables grown in the United States, accounting for more than a million tons of food. |
AboutThese articles are written by the Los Alamos Historical Society Staff. Many of these articles were originally published by the Categories
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