​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.

In January on Facebook we're going #InsideTheArchives to enjoy one of the treasures of Los Alamos history through the years. Following the Tsankawi Trail, you have a great overlook of what is now known as Duchess Castle. While this weathered structure is on National Park Service's Bandelier National Monument land its history impacts the Pajarito Plateau and continues to capture imaginations today.

By Aimee Slaughter
Los Alamos Historical Society

​How did people in the Pajarito Plateau’s past get their water? How did they live in a dry environment like ours?

Ancestral Pueblo people who lived here hundreds of years ago used ingenious dryland farming techniques, and homesteading farmers at the turn of the twentieth century also conserved water for their farms and families. The Los Alamos Ranch School had to provide water for students, staff, and animals at the school. When the Manhattan Project took over the area, a rapidly growing population strained infrastructure, and providing enough water to homes was a constant concern. For hundreds of years, people have solved the challenges of finding water in a dry environment and have created diverse and vibrant communities here on the Pajarito Plateau.