Intermountain Histories

The Atomic Legacy of Hanford

2024-10-22T03:35:21+00:00

Rural farming towns in Eastern Washington were transformed into the backbone of the Manhattan Project. Hanford and Richland were bought by the government to aid in the project. The Hanford site, while being talked about the least, was crucial for the successes of the Manhattan Project, and changed the trajectory of the area.

Hanford, a rural area in the Columbia Basin and Benton County in Washington, was once a farming town before the involvement of the United States Government and the Manhattan Project during World War II. Hanford and the neighboring towns were chosen by Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves to be the area that would produce plutonium for the Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb. Hanford Engineer Works (later known as the Hanford site) was born in March 1943 with the government contracting the DuPont Corporation along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Before construction could begin the government had to relocate the local residents, evicting 1,500 people from their homes, taking sacred fishing grounds of the local Native tribe Wanapum, disinterring 177 bodies from the White Bluffs cemetery, and relocating the bodies to Prosser. The displaced residents either moved away or stayed to work on the project. The residents, mostly farmers, were given 30 days to evacuate and were compensated for their homes and businesses. The government also bought the neighboring towns of Richland to house the white workers and the town of Pasco to house the black and ethnic workers.

The Hanford Construction Camp provided temporary housing to house the builders and their families while building the facility and new Richland that would house the site’s employees. The government contracted Gustav Albin Pehrson, a Swedish-born architect from Spokane to see that Richland was made into a town for the arriving 16,000 employees and their families. Construction took 18 months, assisted by Pehrson’s assembly line style of prefabrication techniques. The cookie cutter houses he had created were called “letter houses,” “ABC houses,” or “alphabet houses” due to Pehrson assigning each style of house a letter of the alphabet. Many of these houses are still standing to this day.

Once construction was completed in 1944, Hanford began creating the plutonium. Due to the secrecy of the project the workers had no idea what they were making until they learned of the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Japan. They soon realized what they had helped create at Hanford and embraced their contribution, with their new city slogan, "Richland: The Atom-Bustin' Village of the West." After the war, the military turned over control of the site to General Electric and the nuclear program to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The town of Richland was bought back by the residents from the government on July 15, 1958, becoming the eleventh largest town in the state. During the Cold War, Hanford was again producing weapons-grade plutonium, and the AEC was commissioned to research, develop, produce, and regulate nuclear power, which has led to a multitude of health and environmental consequences that are still being dealt with today.

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The 509th Composite Group at Wendover Air Force Base

2024-03-19T01:53:40+00:00

In the words of historian Roger D. Launius, “America in the early 1940s was a nation on the move as never before. The exigencies of war reoriented virtually every aspect of the culture, economy, demographics, and politics of aviation in the United States.” The 509th Composite Group at Wendover Air Force Base played an integral role in this transformation by training new pilots, testing new aviation technologies, and successfully executing the Manhattan Project, bringing an end to the bloodiest war the world has ever seen.

One of Utah’s most significant contributions to the American effort during WWII was the creation and training of the 509th Composite Group, “the only unit ever to drop an atomic bomb in combat.” Originally the 393rd Bombardment Squadron, the 509th was created by General Henry “Hap” Arnold, who selected Lt. Colonel Paul W. Tibbets to head the group. Lt. Col Tibbets was given the options of Mountain Home, ID; Fairmont, NE; and Wendover, UT to host his group, as “all three had acceptable facilities and runways for B-29 operations.” Lt. Col Tibbets ultimately chose the site in Utah based on its extensive bombing and gunnery range facilities, as well as the history of heavy bomber training in Utah. The required facilities were already in place in Wendover. The Utah site was also desirable because of its relative proximity to Los Alamos, NM; the site responsible for developing the nuclear payload Tibbets’ team would be delivering. Additionally, since Wendover was so isolated, the project could be kept secret from prying eyes, both foreign and domestic. The 509th Composite Group trained from 1944-1945, dropping 5,000 to 10,000 pound dummy bombs, conducting rapid turns to avoid the nuclear blowback (though the crews weren’t told the reason for these maneuvers), and increasing accuracy to within 200 meters of their targets. On May 29, 1945 the group was relocated to Tinian in the Mariana Island chain. Afew months later they dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, effectively ending the world’s largest and bloodiest conflict. From the “History of the 509th Composite Group” written in 1945, there was an interview with Lt. Colonel Tibbets where he was asked about the success and contributions of the 509th Composite Group. When asked whether the group “measured up to expectations” regarding its contributions and fulfillment of the Manhattan Project, Lt. Colonel Tibbets replied: The mission of the 509th was accomplished. Its success is now a matter of world history. In all probability this success surpasses the expectations of those intimately connected with the early phases of the project. It is safe to say that the 509th never held up the work of the project. Many times the 509th caused the project to speed up their efforts because the unit shaped up faster than expected and was committed to the theater ahead of schedule. The success of this organization is due to teamwork by all people in the outfit and the willingness with which they cooperated with the project people to accomplish our assigned mission. Following the successful conclusion of World War II, thanks in large part to the efforts of the 509th Composite Group, Wendover Air Force Base continued to train new generations of pilots, develop new technologies, and build the fledgling Army Air Corps into the most dominant Air Force the world has ever seen.

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Women in Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project

2023-09-24T18:36:48+00:00

With the war effort withdrawing men from the domestic labor force, women became an increasingly important part of the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos.

Wartime labor shortages were a constant struggle for the United States during World War II. They needed to send troops overseas, develop weaponry, spy on their enemies, strategically plan, and mobilize the entire nation as quickly as possible. By 1943, the United States Army was 200,000 men short for their invasion on D-Day, they were in need of 315 more physicists for their defense projects, and the Manhattan Project was desperately in search of all kinds of labor from scientists and engineers to machinists and pipefitters. In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into existence the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps established “for the purpose of making available to the national defense the knowledge, skill, and special training of women of the nation” on May 15, 1942. Still facing discrimination, unequal pay, and fewer opportunities than their male counterparts, women played an essential role in World War II, especially in Los Alamos.
Because Los Alamos was such a restricted town and the directors wanted to limit the number of outsiders, General Leslie Groves encouraged wives of scientists to work on the project in whatever capacity they could. As an incentive, they provided nursery schools for their young children to aid with childcare. Despite the government’s encouragement, some women were still hesitant to work on the project over concerns for their family’s well-being. Many had not expected to work at all, and quite a few were dissatisfied with the living conditions in which they now were expected to raise their children. Charlotte Serber, the only female group leader at the laboratory, wrote, “For the potential working wife, there was one chief worry. Could she manage her home here on the mesa and work too?” These were fair concerns. The conditions under which they were expected to work were difficult. They were isolated from extended family, were allowed only one day off of work per month for shopping in Santa Fe, were expected to work forty-eight hours in a week, and had almost no bargaining power to shift their rules or salary. They were also far less likely to gain security clearance than their male counterparts, so it was unlikely that they knew what they were helping create.
Despite these stringent circumstances, many women in Los Alamos did work on the secretive atomic gadget. By October 1944, women constituted about 30% of the labor force in the Tech Area, hospital, and schools. It is also notable that although they did employ some women in clerical positions, the vast majority were scientists or technicians. They were metallurgists, engineers, physicists, chemists, and teachers, involved in every aspect of the atomic effort until the very end. The exception for this participation was in Project Alberta. This was the very last phase of the project; the physical delivery of the bomb to the Pacific island Tinian where the nuclear components were assembled before being dropped on Japan. Women who had spent years contributing to this moment were left behind in the United States to learn about the bombingsfrom the same newspapers as everyone else. However, the atomic bomb could not have been built as quickly or efficiently as it was without the contribution of women. They faced gender discrimination, suboptimal conditions, and unfair pay to contribute to the atomic effort in Los Alamos.
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The Trinity Site and the First Atomic Bomb

2023-09-20T20:26:47+00:00

The first successful detonation of an atomic weapon on July 16, 1945 in a remote New Mexican desert had global and historic consequences. “A new thing had been born; a new control; a new understanding of man, which man had acquired over nature” (Isidore I. Rabi).

Even after the United States and its World War II allies accepted Germany’s surrender on May 8, 1945, the conflict still raged in the Pacific with Japan. Japanese resistance was fierce as the United States painstakingly advanced toward Tokyo. As the allied forces moved island by island, fighting in sweltering jungle, both sides suffered heavy losses. It was at this crucial moment that the scientists of the secret American Manhattan Project began planning for a test that would not only change the course of the war, but also the future of international relations.
The United States, in collaboration with allied Great Britain, had been developing an experimental master weapon since August 1942. Code-named “The Manhattan Project,” this highly secret endeavor largely took place in Los Alamos, New Mexico although there were participating teams at Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Hanford, Washington. In this inaccessible New Mexican desert, hundreds of physicists, chemists, engineers, and military personnel gathered in secret to theorize and create the deadliest weapon known to man.
By the end of 1944, there were two designs and two bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man. Little Boy used a gun-type fission design which shot uranium 235 at itself to reach supercritical mass, resulting in the single largest explosion of its time. The Los Alamos scientists were confident that this design would work and did not want to waste any precious material on a test. Little Boy had used all available U235, so any test would deplete the United States’ supply and would require too much time for the project to regenerate at its Oak Ridge site. Little Boy would go on to be dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945 and become the first nuclear bomb used in warfare.
On the other hand, Fat Man utilized an implosion design with explosives surrounding the highly reactive plutonium core. The idea was that the inward-facing explosives would trigger an explosive reaction of the plutonium and result in a larger blast than its Little Boy uranium counterpart. The scientists were less confident in this design. Plutonium had only been discovered at the end of 1940, and the implosion method was difficult to master. If each explosive was not uniform in strength and distance, the correct reaction would not begin, and the overall impact would decrease. Due to these doubts and the easier access to plutonium, the Los Alamos scientists decided to test “The Gadget.”
The first step was finding somewhere to detonate a 10,000 ton bomb without alerting the international community. They decided on a stretch of high desert between New Mexico and Texas called Jornada del Muerto, translated as “Journey of Death.” It was later named the Trinity Site, likely inspired by Robert J. Oppenheimer’s interest in the Hindu concept of the three gods of preservation, destruction, and creation. On May 31, 1945, the requisite shipment of plutonium arrived in Los Alamos from the Hanford facility and scientists began to assemble Fat Man. Up to this point, Los Alamos had not housed a significant supply of plutonium, so all work on Fat Man was done speculatively or at miniscule scales. Working at a harried pace, scientists and engineers readied and transported a plutonium core to Trinity by July 13. Harry Truman, newly inaugurated President of the United States, wanted the test completed before the Potsdam conference with Churchill and Stalin on July 17, but weather conditions made it difficult for the scientists to comply. Finally, at 5:30 am on July 16, “The Gadget” detonated.
Many reactions have been recorded describing the physical experience as well as moral and philosophical implications of the detonation. The light was so powerful that Georgia Green, a blind student miles away at the University of New Mexico asked “What’s that?” Physicist Isidore I. Rabi, who observed from ten miles away at base camp wrote, “Suddenly, there was an enormous flash of light, the brightest light I have ever seen or that I think anyone has ever seen. It blasted; it pounced; it bored its way right through you. It was a vision which was seen with more than the eye. It was seen to last forever.” Rabi also acknowledged the historic and philosophical weight of the moment, “A new thing had been born; a new control; a new understanding of man, which man had acquired over nature.” Alongside confusion and fear expressed by some locals and trepidation expressed by some Los Alamos scientists, there was also great enthusiasm and excitement. Project officials immediately sent a coded telegram announcing the “satisfactory operation” to Truman, just before his meeting with Churchill and Stalin.
Back at the Trinity site, the scientists emerged from their safe havens and inspected the damage. The Gadget had destroyed every living thing within 1,200 feet of ground zero and disintegrated the steel tower on top of which it had been placed. It was, in the words of General Groves, “successful beyond the most optimistic expectations of anyone” and even larger than Little Boy. Because of its success at the Trinity Site, the Fat Man model would later be dropped on Nagasaki on August 9th, three days after Little Boy obliterated Hiroshima.
Today, Trinity remains a highly radioactive site. Visitors are only allowed to visit two days a year. There are replicas of the bomb casing and the tower. Part of the original crater remains and reveals pockets of Trinitite, a green residue of highly radioactive sand particles melted by incredible temperatures into a glass-like substance. It can only be found at the Trinity Site and is illegal to collect for health concerns. Here, the first man-made atomic weapon detonated which aided in ending WWII and ushering in the age of atomic weaponry and mutually assured destruction. This continues to define international relations today.
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Life in Los Alamos: Linking the Past and Present

2023-09-20T19:36:59+00:00

Los Alamos residents in the 1940s found themselves in unusual circumstances. John von Neumann explained that, “At great expense we have gathered on this mesa the largest collection of crackpots ever seen.” Yet these people continued life under the cover of secrecy and created a community which has lasted until this day.

As the scientists and military personnel worked furiously to create an atomic weapon during the latter years of WWII, many moved to the classified town of Los Alamos, New Mexico. Because their project was shrouded in such secrecy, they were required to move themselves and their family without knowing many of the details of their new job or location. Although the civilian and academic director, J. Robert Oppenheimer, tried to make it as much of a collaborative and normal operation as possible, the nature of their assignment meant that living in Los Alamos was unique.
Many scientists arrived without knowing exactly where they would be working or what they would be doing. They were not even allowed to tell their spouses what their work in the restricted laboratories entailed. Secrecy was of the utmost importance. Oppenheimer spread disinformation to nearby cities, such as Santa Fe, that they were working on an electric rocket. Mail for all scientists was addressed to Box 1663, Sandoval County, Rural. It was liable to searches and some outgoing mail was redacted for security concerns. Even phone calls were monitored—army intelligence agents were obvious in listening in on people’s private conversations. Barbed wire covered the scenic landscape and made some workers feel as though they were the ones imprisoned rather than the liberators of those in European prison camps.
Despite the secrecy and sometimes oppressive security, many familiar aspects of daily life continued in Los Alamos. Many women were given clerical jobs such as secretaries or computer operators to keep them occupied while their husbands worked. Children continued to attend school and babies continued to be born. In regards to the baby boom, the military official General Leslie Groves grumbled that they were simply taking advantage of the free healthcare awarded to those in the army effort. The few movies which were allowed to play were quite popular. In a move for additional entertainment, engineers and scientists threw amateur theatricals which even featured the eminent Oppenheimer in the role of “corpse.”
The setting of Los Alamos itself served as a diversion for employees and their families. Oppenheimer had picked the site of Los Alamos for its beauty and openness. He thought that it could give the scientists a sense of freedom amidst all of their restrictions. Placed on top of towering mesas flanked by green mountains and overlooking fantastic natural features, there were many opportunities for outdoor recreation. During the winter, avid skiers trekked up the nearby Jemez Mountains and skied back down to their homes. The outdoor ice rink, built in 1936, became an unofficial youth center for local children to spend their winters with friends. The warmer months brought camping, horseback riding, fishing, and hiking. Curious children and adults also explored the many nearby Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites and ruins.
Even though Los Alamos was a unique environment of brilliant scientists sequestered in the wilderness, life found a way to continue in relative normalcy. It grew out of a wartime necessity into a long-lasting community with unusual origins. Today, Los Alamos is home to around 13,000 people and a National Laboratory specializing in weapon-making for the United States government. The community maintains their engagement in many of the recreational activities that their predecessors did. The Pajarito Ski Hill and the ice rink continue to gather youth and adults during the winter months. Warmer times of the year bring outdoor sports, especially running and hiking, among the abundant natural landscape. Summer is also the ideal time for weapons testing. For seasoned Los Alamos citizens, a large explosion miles away that rattles windows and door frames is unsurprising—rarely do they suspect an earthquake. The work and life of Los Alamos persists nearly a century after it was settled.
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Jewish Contribution to the Manhattan Project

2023-09-13T00:46:14+00:00

Jewish participation in the Manhattan Project, particularly in Los Alamos, was an essential part of the operation's success. They continued to support their country despite local discrimination and the tragedy of World War II occurring abroad.

The United States’ development of the first atomic bomb would not have been possible without the contribution of Jewish Americans and Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany and war-torn Europe throughout the Manhattan Project. In August of 1939, Albert Einstein, Leo Szilard, and Enrico Fermi drafted and sent a letter to President Roosevelt via Alexander Sachs, warning the President of the potential use of atomic power in weaponry. This, in addition to another letter sent by British-Jewish scientists, led Roosevelt to form an advisory committee on uranium and, eventually, create the Manhattan Project.
Significantly, every person involved in the drafting and deliverance of this letter were Jewish or had close Jewish family members. Of the four involved, three were European refugees. Einstein was from a family of German Ashkenazi Jews and fled to the United States in 1933. Szilard was from a Hungarian Jewish family and fled to England in 1933 and then the United States in 1938. Fermi, while himself not Jewish nor German, was married to a Jewish woman which required him and his family to flee his home of Italy in 1938. Sachs was American-Jewish and an important advisor to President Roosevelt. All were impacted by the anti-Semitism of Germany and were respected and prominent enough to sway the President of the United States into forming a committee. Subsequent letters and information, much of which was provided by Jewish scientists, followed and increased the breadth of the project.
Jewish involvement in the Manhattan Project burgeoned as the war continued. J. Robert Oppenheimer, a young American Jew, was placed as the head of the Los Alamos branch of the Manhattan Project. He created four divisions in the Los Alamos lab, with the T-division, the theoretical division, being the most important. Of the 86 members in this division, 18 were Jewish—almost 21%. Even more impressive, of the eight groups in 1945, five were led by Jewish scientists such as Richard Feynman, Hans Bethe, and John von Neumann. Although Jews only constituted around .05% of the US population at the time, they made up a significant portion of the scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Jewish involvement in the Manhattan Project, as well as the project itself, were not known by the American public, and antisemitic prejudice was commonplace. In the 1920s, before J. Robert Oppenheimer attended, the president of Harvard, A. Lawrence Lowell, called for a quota of Jews to keep their presence sparse in the university. Even in Los Alamos, where Jewish scientists were important pioneers of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves, the project’s military leader, stated, “I don’t like certain Jews, and I don’t like certain well-known characteristics of theirs.” Some Jewish scientists, such as Leo Szilard, were tailed by the FBI and noted for their “Jewish extraction” and “foreign tongue.”
At the same time, Los Alamos was a relative haven for these Jews. They were allowed in the upper echelons of decision-making and they were not stripped of titles or rewards because of their background. Ellen Bradbury Reid, an Anglo child in Los Alamos recalled, “I would not say [it was] a utopian situation, but. . . now I realize there were a lot of Jewish people, the European Jewish community who were there. I had no idea. . . [we] were all sort of in the same soup.” Despite prejudice, Jewish scientists were largely able to find footing in Los Alamos and thrive in the project. Jewish scientists in the Manhattan Project made a substantial and powerful impact in crafting the bombs which would end the war that, in total, killed over six million Jews.
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Dorothy McKibbins: The Gatekeeper of Los Alamos

2023-09-08T01:24:19+00:00

The Manhattan Project would not have been possible without the efforts of Dorothy McKibbin, the Gatekeeper of Los Alamos. From attaining marriage licenses to transferring phone calls, Dorothy McKibbin was an integral and diversely skilled cog in the large machine of building the first nuclear weapons.

Once General Leslie Groves and Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer chose Los Alamos, New Mexico as the place to build the atomic bomb; hundreds of bewildered employees streamed into the nearby town of Santa Fe. Due to the confidentiality of the Manhattan Project, recruitment was difficult and details provided to the new hires were vague because of the classified nature of their work. They were told that their work would helpe war effort and be located in the scenic mesas of New Mexico, but little else. After a long train ride to the nearby town of Lamy, scientists and their families hauled their luggage through the winding streets of Santa Fe, looking for 109 East Palace Avenue—the only address they had been given. There, they were met by a simple red and blue sign reading “United States Engineer Office No. 3” and the welcoming presence of Dorothy McKibbin.
In 1932, recently-widowed Dorothy McKibbin moved to Santa Fe from Kansas with her son, hoping for a new life. When she met Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer in 1943, she found one. Oppenheimer recognized her comforting, calming, and competent presence and asked her to be a War Department secretary with unspecified duties. Like the other personnel, she only knew that her job concerned an essential war project. As she discovered after accepting the position, duties encompassed everything from disciplining Nobel laureates, receiving classified mail, enforcing security, helping lost families find the way to their new homes, and more. She was there for some of the most important moments of the project, even observing the Trinity Test from a car parked near Albuquerque. To Dorothy McKibbin, “Working at 109 was more than just a job. It was an exciting experience. Our office served as the entrance to one of the most significant undertakings of the war or, indeed, of the twentieth century.”
For the entirety of the Manhattan Project she was the point of contact between the secret city and the rest of the world, earning herself the nickname of the “Gatekeeper of Los Alamos.” After the Manhattan Project concluded, the site was renamed the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and McKibbin continued to work there until her retirement in 1963. She spent her retirement organizing community programs in Los Alamos and Santa Fe until her death in 1985. Today, a room in the Los Alamos History Museum is named in her honor, and although her office at 109 East Palace currently houses a gift shop, its original iron gate which once welcomed thousands to the secret city is on display at the Los Alamos History Museum.
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Bathtub Row

2023-09-08T00:39:58+00:00

As scientists raced to build the first atomic weapon during WWII, they were required to sacrifice their time, academic careers, energy, bathtubs, and more in the remote desert highlands of New Mexico.

As World War II raged into the 1940s, each country in the war was an avid participant in the race for scientific advancement. With such high stakes, the United States invested two billion dollars—over $33 billion today—in the creation of the atomic bomb. This massive project was dubbed the Manhattan Project, after its headquarters in New York, despite largely taking place in the remote highlands of New Mexico.
While the United States had fiscal resources to invest in the project, they did not have much time. Both the Germans and the Soviets were developing their own nuclear weapons, and it seemed that whoever discovered how to harness the power of the atom first would win the war. The speed and urgency of the venture inevitably meant that some details were overlooked. Construction teams were tasked with building housing for thousands of men, women, and children in the remote deserts of New Mexico in total secrecy. The workmanship of many of these early houses was shoddy at best. Project builders were not only short on time, but materials. In particular, iron was a scarce resource and largely reserved for the war effort. Understandably, it could hardly be used for iron bathtubs. Due to these factors, the majority of scientists, military personnel, and their families lived in small, relatively iron-less, hastily built homes with only a few variations of bathroom fixtures—none of which included bathtubs. Only a single row of houses had the luxury of bathtubs because they were built before the war and had originally belonged to teachers of a secondary boys’ ranch school. These “master cottages” were some of the only buildings already built when the government bought the land and were a coveted luxury. Reserved for men such as Nobel-Prize winning Englishman Sir James Chadwick, explosives expert George Kistiakowsky, bomb designer Max Roy, ordnance director William S. “Deak” Parsons, and head scientist Robert J. Oppenheimer, bathtubs were a sign of prestige in this secret New Mexico town. According to local legend, Alice Kimball Smith, wife of scientist Cyril Smith, coined the term “bathtub row.” This effectively differentiated between the comfortable ranch school homes with bathtubs and those of government construction with showers.
Despite the obvious disparity, many on Bathtub Row were willing to share their good fortune. Robert Oppenheimer was reportedly a generous host who invited many in the community into his home for classified discussions, drinks, and dinner parties. Ordnance director William S. Parsons’ home was fortunate enough to have two bathtubs. He often allowed military men to use them if they were injured and unable to stand for long periods of time under a shower. These bathtubs were also used to entice babysitters who would be rewarded with a relaxing soak in their neighbor’s home in exchange for an afternoon taking care of the owners’ children.
Today, these houses are privately owned, but remain part of the Los Alamos National Historical Landmark District. In 2007, the Los Alamos population petitioned to change the street name from 20th to Bathtub Row. The community has continued to embrace this humorous anecdote from WWII through naming the local brewing co-op after the iconic row of houses. It stands as a reminder of the simple luxuries many relinquished in favor of supporting the American effort during WWII.
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Ashley Pond

2023-09-07T23:39:58+00:00

From a soggy bog to a beloved community gathering place, the change and continuity of Ashley Pond illustrates the many eras of Los Alamos from homestead to Ranch School to government laboratory to the vibrant community of today.

Although Ashley Pond is now a prominent green space in the center of Los Alamos, it had a less majestic beginning. In 1908, it was a soggy depression used by homesteader H. H. Brook for watering his stock. Later, the Los Alamos Ranch School used it for the same purpose. Its applicable, albeit unimaginative, first name was the Stock Watering Tank. This was later switched to the Duck Pond in honor of its most popular visitors. The waterhole continued to remain a relatively unimpressive morass until the Ranch School built a dam in Los Alamos Canyon in 1923. This created a small reservoir which fed a pipeline to provide the school with water. The overflow from the pipeline was then dispersed into a puddle which progressively grew into a pond and then a small lake.
The all-boys Los Alamos Ranch School was founded in 1917 by Detroit native, Ashley Pond Jr., who created it to generate tough, intelligent, well-rounded, and experienced outdoorsmen. As such, the students were encouraged to utilize the beautiful landscape for recreation and exercise. The pond provided an ideal place to put their learning into practice. Although never deep enough for true diving, the pond was perfect for canoeing and an excellent place to practice swimming. In the winter, the boys skated across its frozen surface playing hockey and harvesting the ice for the coming year. Ice blocks were stored in a nearby stone ice house and they were known to have collected enough ice to sustain them for up to two years. Once sufficiently filled, school faculty member—and notorious lover of puns—William Mills, provided the name of Ashley Pond in honor of the founder. The official title for the pond is Ashley Pond, not Ashley Pond Pond, but today Los Alamos natives enjoy the humorous anecdote.
When the United States government acquired the land for the Manhattan Project, they allowed the school two months to make other arrangements. The boys went through a hurried graduation and left their beloved mountains, mesas, and pond in the hands of scientists. Manhattan Project staff built the Technical Area, also called TA 1, around the south side of Ashley Pond as a safeguard against fire. They repurposed the ice house as well, using it in 1945 to assemble nuclear components of the “gadget” which would be tested at Trinity. As such, Ashley Pond became restricted under laboratory security and very few outsiders were able to enjoy it.
Today, Ashley Pond is a pleasant downtown landmark of Los Alamos. Situated near the center of town, it is used for picnics, walks, and outdoor concerts in the summer. Los Alamos natives attentively watch the ducks and geese who live at the pond, especially during chick season. During the winter, surrounding trees are decorated with colorful Christmas lights. The local winter parade currently ends at the pond, the same place where the Ranch School boys canoed and harvested ice nearly a century ago.
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Echo Lake Park

2021-09-10T08:11:02+00:00

Primarily known for its recreational sites, Echo Lake Park is not only a historic physics site but also the home of a WWII high altitude training center.

Echo Lake Park is located at about 10,600 feet above sea level along the Mount Evans Scenic Byway. Ever since the Mount Evans Crest House at the top of the Mount Evans Scenic Byway burned down in 1979, Echo Lake has served as the primary lodging and stop for visitors to the area. Echo Lake hosts a variety of activities and also features two surprising historical sites. Visitors coming to fish at the lake or hike the trails might be surprised to find laboratories that were used to research cosmic radiation. Similarly, those stopping to get a meal at Echo Lake Lodge might be surprised by its wartime history.
The Echo Lake laboratories along with the High-Altitude Laboratory at Mount Evans were designated as a Historic Physics site in October 2017. Once, the laboratories were run in conjunction by the University of Chicago, Cornell, the University of Denver, MIT, NYU, and Princeton. Now the University of Denver oversees the site. Research began in 1935, just four years after the Mount Evans Scenic Byway opened to the public. Although it was easier for the cosmic rays to be studied at the higher elevations, Echo Lake played an important role in the research because it was accessible during the winter. At both laboratories, scientists studied radiation and even proved Einstein’s prediction of time dilation to be true.
In addition to the laboratories, Echo Lake Park is also home to the Echo Lake Lodge. It was originally constructed by the City and County of Denver so that visitors from Denver could have a place to stay while visiting the Mount Evans Scenic Byway. However, it was handed over to H. W. Stewart Inc in 1965. This group continues to run the house to the present day. Individuals can stay and eat at the lodge, which once served as a high-altitude military training camp during World War II. The lodge became the primary stopping point for tourists after the Mount Evans Crest House, built at the top of the Mount Evans Scenic Byway, burned down in 1979.
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Moab’s Uranium Mill Tailings Pile

2018-06-12T01:26:29+00:00

Moab, known in the 1950s as the “Uranium Capital of the World,” is now better known as the home of Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. However, hikers, campers, rock climbers, and mountain bikers who visit Moab ought to be aware of the town’s connections to uranium mining. Every day, 136 containers of radioactive waste are transported alongside the highway that visitors take to get to either park. Furthermore, those who visit Lake Powell or Mead, the Grand Canyon, or any section of the Colorado River south of Moab ought to be aware of the 10.8 million tonnes of radioactive tailings that are being transported to a safer site but currently sit a few hundred feet away from the river.

Outdoor enthusiasts are drawn to Moab because of its location along the Colorado River and its proximity to both Arches and Canyonlands National Park. The federal government has taken an active role in the conservation of land and wildlife in the area, but it has also partnered with entrepreneurs in the private sector who mined for uranium ore, a radioactive mineral that exists in abundance in parts of the southwest. Moab is a town where opposites meet—clean soil meets radioactive dust. The air, while fresh, could be dangerous to visitors who camp or kayak downwind from its massive uranium mill tailings pile.
During the Cold War, the U.S. military encouraged prospectors to search for uranium ore to create stockpiles of atomic and hydrogen bombs to defend against the Soviets. In 1952, thirty-two-year-old prospector Charles Steen discovered the country’s largest uranium deposit in Moab. Ore was extracted at the Mi Vida Mine and processed at the nearby Uranium Reduction Company. After it was processed, the hazardous waste was deposited in an unlined pond adjacent to the Colorado River. In 1962, Steen sold the processing company, which continued as the Atlas Uranium Mill. In 1984, the mill was permanently closed and the pond was covered. However, given the site’s proximity to the Colorado, pollutants from the waste began to leech into the river—one of America’s most important rivers, which is a source of drinking water for more than 40 million people and flows through Las Vegas’s Lake Mead.
In 2001, management of the site was transferred to the U.S. Department of Energy. In 2005, it announced that 10.8 million tonnes of the radioactive tailings would be moved from along the Colorado River, mostly by rail, and buried in a lined hole in Crescent Junction, twenty-eight miles north of Moab. The first relocation occurred in 2008 and might take more than twenty years to complete. Although a radiological survey has verified that the containers have no radioactive material on the outside, Dr. Gene Cole, a retired BYU professor and an environmental health specialist, has argued that it is impossible to completely prevent harmful tailings from spreading along the route, which passes alongside and under U.S. Route 191. Inconveniently, this state highway is the one that most drivers take when visiting Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, as well as iconic Monument Valley. In July 2014, the 7 millionth ton of tailing was placed in the Crescent Junction holding cell, where it should be secured. Nevertheless, who really knows how much radioactive dust blows off along the way?
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Downwinders in Court: Irene Allen v. United States

2018-05-09T03:37:17+00:00

The downwinders of southern Utah have been deeply affected by cancers linked to nuclear radiation. Allen v. United States was a landmark case for holding the government responsible for negligence during nuclear testing.

When deciding where to perform nuclear tests, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) looked westward. Southern Nevada was close to the Los Alamos Laboratory where the weapons were designed, near the Four Corners region rich with the uranium they needed, and in the desert with low population density. To avoid Las Vegas, they just needed wait until the wind was blowing north-east. The Nevada Nuclear Testing site was built and tests began.
As large clouds loomed, residents of southern Utah were repeatedly assured by the AEC that they were safe from radiation. After several years, residents could not ignore the growing rates of cancer in their community. Leukemia increased over the national average and death occurred twice as often. Newspaper stories, congressional reports, and executive attention in other areas of the country encouraged the people to action. In 1978 and 1979, local leaders led the community in a lawsuit against the federal government that would become Allen v. United States.
In 1979, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch held a special town meeting in St. George, Utah to discuss the issue. Locals attended and shared personal stories, including how children interacting with fallout directly. One citizen commented, “You know how little kids love snow. They went out and would eat the snow. They didn’t know it was going to kill them later on.” Gloria Gregerson shared, “We liked to play under the trees and shake this fallout onto our heads and our bodies, thinking that we were playing in the snow. Then I would go home and eat. If my mother caught me as a young child, I would wash my hands; if not, then I would eat with the fallout on my hands.” At the age of seventeen Gloria developed ovarian, stomach, and skin cancer followed by Leukemia. She died at the age of forty-two in 1983. Few citizens escaped having relatives or friends die of cancer.
In 1980, a congressional report “The Forgotten Guinea Pigs” would admit the government “failed to give adequate warning to the residents living downwind from the test site regarding the dangers posed by the radioactive fallout emitted during the atmospheric nuclear test operations.” The question that remained was if the government could legally be held responsible for its actions.
Allen v. United States was a landmark case with over 1,100 plaintiffs represented under 24 representative claims with Stuart Udall as their attorney. In 1984, Bruce Jenkins ruled in favor of the people by holding the government liable for negligence. The U.S. appealed and in 1987 the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his decision. Despite the fact that it was overturned, Allen v. United States is a landmark case because the citizens won and paved the way for compensation in the future.
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Atomic Veterans: Orville E. Kelly and Thomas H. Saffer

2018-05-09T03:01:34+00:00

Soldiers know that risking their lives is a part of their duty to their country, but what does it mean to die for your country as a guinea pig? Orville E. Kelly, Thomas H. Saffer, and many other atomic veterans have asked themselves that very question.

It was 5:30 a.m. on the morning of June 24, 1957 when second-lieutenant Thomas H. Saffer knelt in a trench at the Nevada Nuclear Testing Site. He and his fellow service-men had been assigned to experience the full effects of a nuclear explosion as part of the Plumbbob series. Saffer had been told that kneeling in the trench just two miles away from ground zero would protect him from the gamma rays because they only traveled in a horizontal direction. All he needed to do was kneel down, cover his eyes with his arm, and brace himself. An inter-com announced the count-down: Three, two, one . . .
"At zero, I heard a loud click. Immediately, I felt an intense heat on the back of my neck. A brilliant flash accompanied the heat, and I was shocked when, with my eyes tightly closed, I could see my bones in my forearms as though I were examining a red x-ray . . . I had been bounced helplessly around in the trench for ten to twelve seconds that seemed like an eternity. I felt as though I had been attacked and savagely beaten by a gang of toughs who hammered on my helmet and tore at my clothing from all sides. I was alive but dazed. No one had prepared me for what I had experienced. Had something gone wrong or was my encounter typical of a nuclear explosion?"
Saffer’s experience actually was typical for the thousands of soldiers who participated in the nuclear testing from 1945 to 1963. Later, he discovered that he was not the only veteran to develop serious health problems due to the heavy doses of radiation released during the nuclear explosions. An estimated 250,000 defense personnel were exposed to radiation during the United States nuclear weapons tests. For some, it meant cancer and premature death. Over the years, soldiers realized the effects of their service on their lives and fought for reparations.
In 1979, Orville E. Kelly organized the NAAV or the National Association of Atomic Veterans “for the purposes of allowing the U.S. Atomic Veteran Community to speak, with a single voice, to their inability to get a fair hearing related to their developing (radiogenic) health issues.” He was the first Atomic Veteran to be awarded compensation by the Veterans Association for the effects of radiation. In 1996, the Repeal of Nuclear Radiation and Secrecy Agreements Law allowed veterans to share their experiences during nuclear testing. The Compensation Act of 1988, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in 1990, and the 1995 Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments all acknowledged the mistake of the federal government to not inform soldiers and citizens of the dangers of nuclear testing.
The government performed the tests in the name of national security, but in the end its own citizens were harmed. While the atomic bomb is often debated in the terms of war, it is important to acknowledge the costs at home.
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Bullock v. United States: Radioactive Sheep

2018-05-08T02:41:55+00:00

The United States Nuclear Testing Program began in the 1950s and was conducted in the Nevada desert near local sheep grazing lands. The Bullock ranching family was heavily affected by the radiation in spring of 1953. Vera Bullock later recorded, “By June 4, eleven bomb tests had been conducted and our lives had been changed forever.”

It was an early, spring morning in 1953 in eastern Nevada when brothers Kern and McRae Bulloch were grazing their sheep. Just miles east of the Nevada Nuclear Testing Site, these brothers were witness to one of the largest nuclear tests performed by the United States government. Kern recorded the experience from that morning in his own words:
"I remember the day very distinctly. I was sitting with one leg cocked over my saddle horn, when I noticed some airplanes. I watched them come from the east and start to turn north over the Nevada Test Site. All at once there was a fire ball, I threw my hands over my eyes, it about blinded me, my horse darn near unloaded me, and the sheep all came together in a wad. They had dropped a bomb from the air less than 40 miles away."
Unnerved by the experience, the brothers sat talking until a convoy of military personnel traveled toward them. An officer addressed them saying, “You’re in a hell of a hot spot. Get these sheep and yourselves the hell out of here as fast as you can.” Kern and McRae moved their sheep, but with a whole outfit of supplies and sheep that only moved six miles a day, the process was slow. On the way back to Utah, the brothers noticed burns and sores on their sheep and horses.
After the Bullocks arrived at their lambing sheds in Cedar City, the sheep died in droves. Each morning, the Bullocks awoke to find more of their sheep dead than the day before. Other sheep ranchers who were in Nevada with them experienced the same strange symptoms of deaths, burns, and deformed lambs. The lambs that survived birth only lived for several hours. In total, the Bullocks lost 2,300 sheep. Local veterinarians were baffled and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was contacted. Kern was present when government scientists measured the radiation on the sheep with their Geiger counters and were stunned, “They’re so hot the needle’s about to jump the post.” Their final report was published and the cause of death determined: malnutrition. The ranchers were outraged.
The ranchers had not only lost millions of dollars, but their way of life. In 1955, Kern and five other ranchers determined to take the United States government to court. They asked that each rancher be compensated at current market price for each sheep lost. Kern’s wife Vera later wrote that before the trial an AEC attorney approached Kern. He admitted that the radiation killed the sheep, but that the AEC could never admit it because “every pregnant woman who lost a baby and every person who got sick would sue the government.” The ranchers lost the case in 1955 and the appeals case in 1982. McRae later told a newspaper reporter, “What I feel bad about is if they knew they were going to hurt us, why didn’t they warn us ahead of time?” Many families in southern Utah would ask the same question over the next several decades. Bullock v. United States was the first of a series of legal battles against the AEC for negligence
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The Production and Legacy of The Conqueror (1956)

2018-03-14T18:09:43+00:00

Considered to be one of the worst films ever made, the film, The Conqueror, was filmed in St. George, Utah. Many years later, after many of the stars of the film died of cancer, the connection between the film and fallout from atomic bomb testing in nearby Nevada was made.

The 1956 film The Conqueror has an interesting connection to the state of Utah. Produced by Howard Hughes and distributed by RKO Radio pictures, the residents of St. George knew their town was in for something big when the idea of filming a “religious extravaganza” in the area was proposed in a City Council meeting in spring 1954. The southern Utah not foreign to Hollywood productions as many films had been made in Kanab and elsewhere. However, this would be the first time a major movie would be filmed in St. George. Filming began in the summer of 1954, and cost a total of six million dollars - making it one of the most expensive films ever made up to that point.
The picture was directed by Dick Powell and star legendary Western actor John Wayne as Mongolian leader Genghis Khan. Susan Hayward starred as a beautiful Tartar princess who is captured by Khan. Location scouts believed Snow Canyon State Park, Escalante Desert, and a few smaller towns near St. George would be perfect landscapes for recreating the Gobi Desert. Seven-hundred locals were employed to work on the film, and an estimated $750,000 dollars was brought into the town’s economy. Hotels were booked, buses were rented, catering was provided from local restaurants and the Boy Scouts of America provided the crew with hundreds of chairs and tables. Many locals were even hired to be extras. Notably, a group of 300 Native Americans were used in a scene depicting a Mongol village. Summer tourists remember seeing large staged battles between costumed actors riding on horses.
Though the film performed quite well at the box office, it was largely forgotten by the American public until 1979 when it was purchased from the Howard Hughes estate by television stations. In 1980 more attention was brought to the film through an article published by People magazine. The article explained that 91 out of the 220 cast and crew members involved with The Conqueror, had contracted cancer. Up to that point, 46 of those individuals including Dick Powell, John Wayne, Susan Hayward, and Agnes Moorehead had died from the disease. Some believe the cast and crew got cancer either due to happenstance or living a lifestyle consisting of smoking and drinking. However, many have theorized that radioactive fallout produced by atomic bomb testing on nearby Nevada test sites had caused St. George residents and people who were on the set of The Conqueror to have cancer. In 1980, Dr. Robert Pendleton a radiologist at the University of Utah, stated, “With 91 cancer cases, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up in a court of law." Because of the film’s poor Shakespearean-style dialogue, strange romantic plot and miscasting of actors, The Conqueror is regarded as one of the worst films of all time. Throw in the theory on cancer and the film is viewed as one of the most famous “cursed films” ever made.
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