Los Alamos and Santa Fe and the Manhattan Project

We like to vacation in New Mexico.  Two weeks ago we spent a week in Santa Fe.  One of our day trips was a visit to Los Alamos, where the first atomic bombs were developed and built.  Los Alamos is a beautiful town in a scenic setting, atop a thousand foot tall mesa overlooking the Rio Grande River.  It has two fine local history museums, one that concentrates on the arts and local settlers and pioneers, and another one, the Bradbury Museum, that focuses on the role of Los Alamos in the development of the atomic bomb.

The Bradbury is an interesting visit.  It has a section for the geeky types who want to know what the bomb looked like and how it has been deployed since then as a weapon.  And, it has a section for geeky kids with robots and science demos.  The third section, though, caught our attention.  It focuses on the timeline associated with the development of the bomb, and especially on the personal stories of those who worked there, from mailroom clerk to chief scientist.  Their stories are told on placards hung around the room -- about 100 of them.  The placard shows a photo of the person at the time they worked there, and a photo of them taken in the past five years or so.  I encourage you to visit if you are ever in the area.

One other Manhattan Project site we visited was 109 East Palace, a plain-looking storefront used during WWII as the check in office for anyone going to Los Alamos - from top scientist to cook.  The office exists today as a small retail store selling bed linens and is located one block east of the Santa Fe plaza.