THE "BIG HOUSE"
Los Alamos Boys Ranch School
and Los Alamos (The Town)
Resources: Photo Gallery
The "Big House" was the dormitory for the Los
Alamos Boys Ranch School. Students slept year-round on its
unheated porches. During the Manhattan Project, the Big House contained,
among other things, a library, the Chaplain's Office, and the Red Cross
headquarters. Privileged guests and high-ranking civilians also sometimes
stayed there.
The photograph above is reproduced from Edith
C. Truslow, with Kasha V. Thayer, ed., Manhattan Engineer District:
Nonscientific Aspects of Los Alamos Project Y, 1942 through 1946 (Los
Alamos, NM: Manhattan Engineer District, ca. 1946; first printed by Los Alamos
Scientific Laboratory as LA-5200, March 1973; reprinted in 1997 by the Los
Alamos Historical Society), 58. The photograph below is of a group of
Ranch School students in front of the Big House; it is reproduced from
"Dateline: Los Alamos," a special issue of the monthly publication of Los
Alamos National Laboratory (1995), 7. At the bottom is an
"establishing shot" of Los Alamos
in which Fuller Lodge and the Big House
are visible in the distance to the left and the right, respectively; click here
for more information on this photograph.
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