Los Alamos Historical Museum

Town history museum in former Ranch School buildings from the Manhattan Project era

The Los Alamos Historical Museum occupies one of the original Ranch School buildings from the pre-Manhattan Project era — a log-and-stone structure that predates the entire secret city built around it. The collection covers the town's pre-war history as a remote boys' school, the sudden transformation in 1943 when the Army requisitioned the site, and the experience of the scientists and their families who lived here in a community sealed from the outside world.

The displays are unpretentious and informative, with photographs, personal effects, and documents that bring the wartime period to life. Admission is free or by donation. The museum is a short walk from the Bradbury Science Museum, and the two together give a good picture of what this strange, purpose-built town was and is.

things to do museum
A story
Before the Manhattan Project took over the Pajarito Plateau in 1943, the site was occupied by the Los Alamos Ranch School — a private school for boys founded in 1917 that emphasised outdoor life and physical fitness. J. Robert Oppenheimer had visited as a young man and remembered it when he was looking for a remote site to build his secret laboratory. The Army gave the school six weeks' notice to close. Many of the Ranch School buildings were then used as offices and residences for the Project's scientists.