Manhattan Project National Historical Park

The Manhattan Project National Historical Park is comprised of three locations – Project Y at Los Alamos, New Mexico; Site X at Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Site W at Hanford, Washington – all sites associated with the development of the world’s first atomic weapons. I had previously toured Oak Ridge and had briefly stopped at the visitor center in Los Alamos, but this would be my first in-depth visit.

The Manhattan Project has fascinated me for quite a while, but from a cultural and women’s history standpoint, not a scientific/engineering one. I have read several historical fiction books about the women who worked at Oak Ridge and the wives who accompanied their scientist husbands to Los Alamos. It was hard for me to imagine what it would have been like to live in a secret city where a person knew only her piece of the puzzle and could not ask questions about what was going on there.

Exhibits at the Visitor Center Include Panels on Women of the Manhattan Project

Nearly all the historic properties at Los Alamos are located “behind the fence” on a secure federal Department of Energy reservation. Except for guided tours offered by Los Alamos National Laboratory three times a year, the park experience here is limited to those related sites in the downtown area. If truth be known, after looking at photographs and descriptions of the off-limits sites, I knew I would enjoy visiting the downtown sites much more than the ones I would miss.

The site chosen for the Manhattan Project was the home of the Los Alamos Ranch School, which was forced to shut down in 1943. Many of the school’s buildings were then reused for housing and other purposes. My favorite building was Fuller Lodge, built as the school’s dining hall and used for community activities for lab employees. Designed by noted architect John Gaw Meem in 1928, the lodge is constructed of huge ponderosa pine and aspen logs.

Fuller Lodge

The Original Dining Hall at Fuller Lodge

To the north of Fuller Lodge is a row of houses built for ranch school faculty. These houses became homes to high-ranking Manhattan Project leaders, including Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Hans Bethe, and William “Deak” Pearsons. Unlike most project housing that was hastily built with few amenities, the houses on this street had bathtubs. The street soon was dubbed Bathtub Row.

Bathtub Row

I was able to tour the Hans Bethe House, which is now part of the Los Alamos History Museum, with its recreated living room and kitchen from the 1950s. The museum is in the process of restoring the Oppenheimer House next door.

Hans Bethe House

Life in the 1950s

The Los Alamos History Museum is housed in a former guest cottage for the ranch school and features exhibits on the Manhattan Project, as well as the people of Los Alamos from ancient times to the present. Next to the museum is a reconstructed Ancestral Pueblo site, as well as the relocated Romero Cabin, which has become a symbol of Hispanic homesteading here.

Los Alamos History Museum

Ancestral Pueblo Site

Romero Cabin

Other sites associated with the Manhattan Project are the statues of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and Gen. Leslie Groves, the leaders of Project Y in Los Alamos, and Ashley Pond, which has always had a central role in the Los Alamos community.

Ashley Pond and Statues of Oppenheimer and Groves

Before leaving town, I visited the Bradbury Science Museum, but it was so crowded with school groups that I could barely see a thing. I checked out the exhibits featuring the history of the Manhattan Project and then made a quick exit.