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By Kaity Burke  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).
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By Kaity Burke 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. On Facebook we went #InsideTheArchives to explore some of the history of Los Alamos retail. Click through to explore historic photos and artifacts from businesses and shopping in the past.  George Hillhouse and Mr. and Mrs. Martin in the Los Alamos Pastry Shop, sometime between 1947–1957. Los Alamos Historical Society Photo Archive. Here's another #InsideTheArchives post from our Facebook page, this one focusing on people whose lives intersected with Fuller Lodge: the waitresses of The Lodge hotel. In our society it is rare to live and work in the same location (although this is now the case for many us during this time of COVID-19). The Lodge had a restaurant and bar which served meals to its guests. The waitresses who served the meals for The Lodge lived there as well. There is even some mystery involved because we have conflicting sources about where the staff bedrooms were located in Fuller Lodge.  The Fuller Lodge dining room in July 1946, towards the end of Project Y (which ended at the end of that year). Photo by Joseph Gluth. Los Alamos Historical Society Photo Archives. Earlier this summer, we reflected on the closure of the Reel Deal Theater with an #InsideTheArchives post on Facebook exploring the history of movie theaters in our community. Since the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos has had six separate theaters with some of those being acquired by different owners and renamed. Our Archives has a number of photographs, newspaper articles, and paper artifacts (such as the Zia Co. calendar you can see with this post) that show or reference these local theaters. Many people remember these places as centers for fun, entertainment, and socialization as they grew up.  Marquee, ticket booth, and entrance to the Centre Theater, Los Alamos Community Center, 1950. Los Alamos Historical Society Photo Archives. Absolutely! Here's an #InsideTheArchives post from our Facebook account that looks at a couple of historic photographs from two local playgrounds alongside a collection of current photos from this year. These snapshots give us changes to the structures over the years. These can inform us about what interested kids at the time, what was considered safe, and show us what has changed or remained over time in our community. Each photograph gives us a glimpse of life from that year in Los Alamos history. Do you have any photographs or objects that reflect what Los Alamos life is like?  Pine Street playlot on August 18, 1950. Los Alamos Historical Society Photo Archives. By Sharon Snyder
Los Alamos Historical Society For most people, our first personal connections to history are generally made in our hometowns as we are growing up. For those who count Los Alamos as their hometown, the experiences are unique and not easily understood by people anywhere else. With only the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a major employer, most Los Alamos High School graduates move on to other places for employment, but they miss sharing their unique memories of our very different town. I know about that. I moved away after graduating in 1965. Though I was living in Albuquerque and not so very far away, I enjoyed crossing paths occasionally with someone from the Hill and feeling a kinship with them. After five decades away, I moved back to Los Alamos, and I immediately knew that I was home. By Heather McClenahan
Los Alamos Historical Society The Los Alamos History Museum is excited to announce that its new exhibit, “Pierotti’s Clowns: Creating Community,” is on display now through December 2018 in the Los Alamos County Municipal Building at 1000 Central ave. Visit this exhibit to learn about the celebrated accomplishments of Pierotti’s Clowns and how this five-man, fast-pitch softball team shaped the development of Los Alamos with their athletic skill, charming antics and philanthropy. The exhibit is in the main lobby of the Municipal Building. By Stephanie Yeamans
Los Alamos Historical Society As the community of Los Alamos, a relatively young town in historic New Mexico, grows older, portions of its population are also aging. When retirees downsize or parents pass away, families often wonder what to do with old papers and objects from years gone by. The Los Alamos Historical Society often becomes the repository for those collections. As caretakers of our community history, the Historical Society has legal and ethical obligations for these donations. If you are considering a donation of papers, photographs, or artifacts to the Los Alamos Historical Society, the archives and collections staff would like to share with you some of the questions we ask and criteria we require for donations. By HEATHER MCCLENAHAN
Los Alamos Historical Society “Los Alamos Notes Little Effect From Opening Its Gates” is a historic headline. It appeared in the May 6, 1957 edition of the of the Albuquerque Journal, with an article about how removing the security gates at the entrance of the once-secret city did not lead to a wave of crime and other problems. Los Alamos residents were shocked in February 1957 to learn that in less than one week, the gates that guarded the town since its inception would come down. The town had been a top-secret city during World War II and a “gated” community since, and most residents were used to keeping their doors unlocked and their bicycles left out and about. |
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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The Los Alamos Historical Society preserves, promotes, and communicates the remarkable history and inspiring stories of Los Alamos and its people for our community, for the global audience, and for future generations.
Contacts: AC Tech: 505-709-7738, actech@losalamoshistory.org Archives: 505-709-7841, archives@losalamoshistory.org Collections: 505-795-9970, curator@losalamoshistory.org Educator: 505-709-7760, educator@losalamoshistory.org Executive Director: 505-662-6272, execdirector@losalamoshistory.org Executive Assistant: 505-695-3524, kristen@losalamoshistory.org Membership: 505-695-3524 Museum Assistant: kaity@losalamoshistory.org Museum/Museum Shop: 505-709-7794, info@losalamoshistory.org Museum Shop Manager: 505-695-5250, museumshop@losalamoshistory.org |
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