TRKNKTYAT

1945-1995

Written by Morgan Rieder and Michael Lawson

Edited by Meliha S. Duran and Beth Morgan

1995

WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE

HUMAN SYSTEMS RESEARCH, INC. TRINI1Y AT FIFTY

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF TRINITY SITE NATIONAL HISTORIC l.AND MARK.

WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE. SOCORRO COUN1Y. NEW MEXICO

Morgan Rieder and Michael Lawson. Authors

Meliha S. Duran and Beth Morgan, Technical Editors

Contract No. DAAD07 -94-D-0 104 Delivery Order No. 22

Prepared for White Sands MfssUe Range. New Mexico

Submitted by Human Systems Research. Inc. Tularosa. New Mexico

HSR Report No. 9439

WSMR Archaeological Report No. 95-8

1995 Cover photograph: Detonation ofn-inity (WSMR photograph file).

11 CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 1 TR1Nl1Y PRESERVATION 73 ENVIRONMENTAL SETfJNG 5 Administrative Status 73 7he Environment Today 5 Trinity Recording Project and Past Environment 6 Architectural Conseroation 7 4 CULTURAL HISTORY OFTHE Development 74 NORTHERN JORNADA DEL REFERENCES CITED 77 MUERTO 7 Paleoindian Hunters 7 Archaic HunterI Gatherers 7 Jomada MogoUon/Anasazi Agriculturalists 8 Protohistoric Hunters 9 Apache Indians 10 Historic Ranchers and Developers 10 ARCHAEOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY 15 Archaeological Survey 15 Archival Research 16 Oral History 16 TRlNITY SITE 19 The Manhattan Project 19 TheSetup 19 7he Archaeology ofTrinity 21 Trinity Summary 42 Trinity Site Since July 1 945 43 GEORGE MCDONALD RANCH 45 Ranch History 45 The House and Related Structures 4 7 Resotration and Stailization Efforts 50 MCDONALD BROTHERS RANCH 51 Ranch History 51 Houses and Other Structures 53 Reconstruction and Stabilization Efforts 55 HISTORIC RANCHING 57 Story Ranch 57 Story WeU 59 Foster Ranch 61 Foster WeU 61 Greens Baber WeU 65 Green Tank 67 Summary 68 PREHISTORIC USE OF THE TR1NI1Y SITE 69

til tv INTRODUCTION

"The effects [of the Trinity Test) intelligence that the Nazis were could well be called unprecedented, developing nuclear weapons. The war magnificent. beautiful. stupendous. in Europe ended before the Trinity and terrifying. No manufactured Test. but war in the Pacific arena phenomenon of such tremendous continued. Soon after the successful power had ever occurred before." So nuclear test, the U.S. Army used General Farrell. deputy to General atomic weapons against targets in Groves. later wrote of the testing of Japan. contributing to an the first atomic bomb at the unconditional surrender by the Alamogordo Bombing Range on July Japanese and an end to world 16. 1945. conflict. The nuclear test represented the Yet that event had a very humble culmination of an unprecedented beginning in an undeveloped. virtually collaboration between scientists and abandoned. isolated ranching area in the military, forged by the nation's the Chihuahuan Desert. miles from defense needs arising from World War the nearest town. This is the story of II. Development was spurred by the archaeology of the Trinity

Detonation ofnuclear device at Trinity (WSMR photograph file).

1 w E s 0 5 10 ------Miles

Oscura Mountain

TRINITY ( GROUND ZERO

...

Map of'Ihnity Area.

2 Test-both what came before and what was required to test this most awesome device of the twentieth century. The locus of the test is now designated as Trinity Site National Historic Landmark (LA 100.000). The site possesses several types of resources. including the facilities for the Trinity Test and prehistoric and historic sites potentially eligible to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). Recent archaeological surveys by Human Systems Research, Inc., have documented the remains of the infrastructure designed and built by Manhattan Project personnel to conduct and monitor the nuclear test at Trinity. Archaeologists also recorded premilitary historic ranching activities associated with the five family ranches operating here when the area was evacuated for military purposes in 1942. The views. opinions. and findings contained in this report are those of the authors and editors and should not be construed as an official Department of Defense position. policy, or decision, unless so designated by other documentation.

3 4 ENVIRONMENTAL SE'ITING

The arid piece of desert now known la Campana and Las Campanillas. To as the Trinity Site fit the the north the land steadily rises into requirements of the Manhattan Chupadera Mesa. To the south are Project perfectly. While it is obvious two passes through the mountains: that the personnel with the Oscura Gap, between the Oscuras Manhattan Project were looking for and the Little Burros. and an isolated piece of land for their test. Mockingbird Gap, between the Little it is more difficult to understand why Burros and the Mockingbirds. To the nineteenth-century ranchers chose southwest. Trinity Basin extends to the barren Chihuahuan Desert, when where the Jornada narrows between they could have settled in lusher the Fra Cristobal range and the San locations. It is even more difficult to Andres Mountains. The land rises imagine prehistoric peoples collecting slightly here to separate the Trinity or catching enough food here to Basin from the main part of the sustain them year around. Jomada del Muerto. The Chihuahuan Desert, which extends from around Socorro on the The Environment Today north into Mexico on the south. is characterized by extensive. closed The climate is arid, with annual alluvial basins and north-south precipitation averaging only 8 to 9 in. trending. rocky mountain ranges. (Houghton 1976). The greater part of Trinity Site sits within the Jomada this precipitation, which falls between del Muerto (Journey of Death). just July and September. is delivered by one of these extensive, closed alluvial thunderstorms that drop their basins. The Jornada is a long. broad moisture very rapidly and locally. to moderately narrow syncline, Seasonal variation in temperature bounded by the uplifts of the San tends to be extreme: the mean Andres and Oscura Mountains on the maximum in July is 93 degrees F, east and by a corresponding series of while the mean minimum in January uplifts on the west that separate the is 21 degrees F. The Trtnity Basin has basin from the valley of the Rio a frost-free season of 245 days and Grande (Darton 1928; Keyes 1905). receives sunlight for 80 percent of Trinity Site lies on the lower daylight hours (Taft and Hoidale portion of the bajada or lower slope 1969). that extends west from the base of As if the barren, rocky terrain and the Oscura, Little Burro, and the intense heat of summer were not Mockingbird Mountains into the daunting enough. water resources are Trinity Basin. as the northern portion very limited. Drainages in the basin of the Jornada is now called. only carry water after a storm. The Elevations within Trinity Site run drainages flow west from the from 4,690 to 5.280 ft. mountains and south from From the foothills of the Oscura Chupadera Mesa into the playa that, Mountains. the Trinity Basin opens during the Pleistocene, was Lake to the west. Across the Trinity Basin Trinity (Neal et al. 1983). The playas is the uplift of the Little San Pascual here still hold water. albeit briefly. As Mountains, while to the northwest in much of the Jomada del Muerto, are the volcanic remnants of Cerro de groundwater here ls readily available.

5 as evidenced by several wells drilled by immediately around the nest. ranchers. but the water contains indicating the local plant gypsum and calcite. communities. Often built in protected Soils for the most part are sandy crevices and well-watered with urine, loams and loamy sands. The intense the nests can be preserved for heat of the nuclear blast at Trinity in thousands of years. Radiocarbon 1945 created trinitite by fusing the dating on the organic materials surface sands into a glassy substance. provides absolute dates for the nests The ground s urface becomes more and the microclimatic data they gravelly where slope and precipitation contain. have eroded much of the soil. Beginning 10,000 years ago. the These soils support grassland and flanks of the mountain ranges around desertscrub plants, depending on the Trinity Basin were probably elevation. The floor of the Trinity covered by a juniper-oak woodland, Basin preserves relic stands of the which evolved into a desert grassland grama range that once covered this by the Middle Holocene (4.000-8.000 area. These grasses attracted the years ago). The Chihuahuan Desert. nineteenth-century ranchers to the which is dominated by creosotebush Trinity Basin. Grama (Bouteloua sp.) (Larrea tridentata). was established by is still present. but dropseed the Late Holocene (beginning 4,000 (Muhlenbergia sp.), tobosa (Hilaria years ago). At higher elevations on the mutica), and other grasses now flanks of the Oscura and San Andres predominate. Mountains. the mixed conifer forest Invader plants. such as tamarisk evolved to a juniper-oak woodland by or salt cedar (Tamarix chinensis). can 10.000 years ago. Beginning about be found in and around earthen tanks 4,000 years ago, the woodland shifted at historic ranching sites. and to grassland. Russian thistle (Salsola kali) appears Therefore. 10,000-12.000 years in recently disturbed areas. ago, during the moister conditions of the last major glaciation. the earliest Past Environment hunters in the Southwest found grasslands for large mammals (now­ How did the Trinity Basin look to extinct species of man1moth, bison, prehistoric hunters? Gradual climatic horse, sloth. and other animals). changes have affected the vegetation These species were concentrated on during the past the 18.000 years. the basin floor. Plant and animal species liVing in the A general drying trend has affected basin changed as the climate changed the Southwest for the last 10,000 and undoubtedly affected the nature years. As a result. grasslands became and distribution of settlements in the much more extensive within the basin. foothills, making hunting there How do archaeologists know about profitable. while gath ering of the the change in the environment? In plants available in a number of particular. archaeologists and environments in the basin and botanists study packrat middens; adjacent ranges provided additional undisturbed soils and other areas food. By the Late Archaic, a lso provide clues to past 2,000- 4.000 years ago. conditions in environments. Packrat nests and the the Chihuahuan Desert had fecal materials they contain provide undoubtedly forced many of the the best clues. because the rats only grazing species that lived on the collect plant materials from grasslands to higher elevations.

6 CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE NORTHERN JORNADA DEL MUERTO

Except for occasional military Gap Site in the northern portion of facilities. the broad expanse of the the Jomada del Muerto. Robert Weber Trinity Basin looks as it most likely has spent 25 years working on this looked during most of the last 10.000 unique site. Located on a ridge along years. However, archaeologists have Chupadera Arroyo. it is an found evidence of temporary camps intermittently occupied camp that and permanent residents in a variety contains evidence of a wide range of of physical settings spanning t he Clovis-period domestic activities. whole time peiiod. Gradual changes in the environment resulted in the Paleoin.dian Hunters extinction of the mammoth and other Pleistocene fauna. and Clovis points The earliest evidence of human were replaced by Folsom points. also occupation in the area is the finely finely made points. The early Folsom made lithic tools and projectile points people (dated to 9000-8000 B.C.) of the Paleoindian period, dating from exploited a now-extinct form of bison 11.500 to 7.500 years ago. (Bison antiquus). as well as other Traces of the Clovis technology quarry. Their sites have been practiced by hunters of 9500-9000 identified along the Rio Grande B.C. (Irwin-Williams and Haynes (Judge 1973), while isolated Folsom 1970) have been excavated at a few spear points have been found in the sites in the vicinity; isolated points Trinity Basin. Upper levels of the may indicate a dart lost during deposits at the Mockingbird Gap site hunting or dropped from the hide of a also contain Folsom artifacts (Weber quarry. Archaeological evidence from and Agogino 1968). Occasionally later the few excavated sites indicates that Paleoindian tools are also found in Clovis hunters lived in small family the area. groups, leaVing limited evidence of their camps near water sources on Archaic Hunter/Gatherers basin floors. Sites are rare. probably because of low population densities. In contrast to the Paleoindian Extensive erosion has also removed period, archaeological remains evidence of these early sites. beginning about 7,500 years ago These earliest Paleoindian hunters indicate gathering as well as hunting subsisted on the extinct mammoth as within a variety of biotic communities well as smaller fauna. Pleistocene found throughout the Chibuahuan lakes such as Lake Trinity Desert. As conditions became drier, undoubtedly attracted herds of Archaic peoples focused on exploiting animals, which could be driven into probably all of the productive the mud and then dispatched. Much ecological zones in the area on a of what is known about the Clovis seasonal basis. culture comes from kill sites Technological differences between throughout the Southwest: however. Paleoindian and Archaic some sites provide evidence of longer archaeological remains are cited as occupation. such as the Mockingbird evidence that Archaic groups did not

7 develop from the Paleolndian Mesoamerica have been found ln populations in response to climatic Fresnal Shelter. Coinciding with the c hange. However, Paleoindian beginning of a period of less-arid remains are so infrequent 1n the area desert conditions. colJ ection of that thls is still conjecture. domestic corn may have been Archaeologists Scotty MacNeish fortuitous. along with other food and Pat Beckett (198 7) have defined plants. The variety and number of the Chihuahua Archaic within the dar t points suggest continued Chihuahuan Desert environment of dependence on large game. and the south-central New Mexico and ground-stone industry continued to northern Chihuahua. Mexico. This increase. culture is defined on the basis of During the Hueco phase (900 B.C. Archaic artifacts (da rt points, to A.D. 200). new varieties of corn grinding stones) and hearths found in were introduced. in addition to beans numerous rock shelters in southern and perhaps amaranth. Domesticated New Mexico, including Fresnal plants became more importa nt. Sites Shelter near High Rolls in the were larger, probably with more Sacramento Mountains. pithouses: were occupied longer: and Archaeologists have removed dry can be found throug h out the materials from preserved layers in Chihuahuan Desert. providing access rock shelters and dated the to more plant resources. radiocarbon in these materials. By The remains of the Chihuahua m atching the distinctive flaked -stone Archaic suggest a long, s table proj ectile points found in other sites development from a hunting people to to the dated materials from these rock agriculturalists who learned the best s helters. it is possibe to characterize environments within the Chihuahua Archaic settlements of different time Desert for planting their corn. The periods. The Chihuahua Archaic has first plants may have been treated as four phases or time periods. one of a variety of locally available During the Gardner Springs phase plants. each with its own season for (6000 to 4300 B.C.). early grinding gathering. Cultigens expanded the tools have been found, although other resources of the desert to provide a materials are different from local more reliable food source. allowing Paleoindian artifacts. The tools the local inhabitants to raise enough suggest hunting and skin processing: food to last the whole year. plants were ground and cooked in pits. Jomada Mogollon/Anasazi During the Keystone phase (4300 Agriculturalists to 2500 B.C.). larger family groups may have wintered in riverine Drought conditions commenced e nvironments in h ouses that about A.D. 100. Local c ultures consisted of brush domes built over apparently responded with increased s hallow pits. During the warmer dependence on corn, beans. and other months. they spread out across the domesticated plants. Greater numbers terrain to collect resources. The of people gathered at locations of frequency of ground stone for plant higher agricultural potential. forming processing incr eases during this pithouse villages in some areas by phase. about A.D. 200. Ceramics were The Fresnal phase (2500 to 900 introduced about this same time. B.C.) indicates greater ch a n ge. To the south and east of the Domesticated corn seeds from J ornada del Muerto. the occupa tion is

8 called the Jornada Mogollon (Lehmer Chupadero Black-on-white are the 1948; Marshall 1973). During the predominant decorated ceramics. By Mesilla phase (A.D. 200-1100). people about A.D. 1300. glaze was added to lived in pit houses excavated into the the painted pots. Ceramics found ground. with brush and probably mud within the Jornada del Muerto covering the portion that extended contain elements from these groups. above the surface. By A.D. 1000. as well as elements from the Jomada during the late Mesilla phase. Mogollon. indicating that the area pithouse Villages occurred in the was a zone of cultural interface Tularosa Basin in almost every throughout this 1.200 year period. location with agricultural potential. The ceramics made by this group were Protohistoric Hunters brown paste and undecorated. Mesilla-phase trade ceramics are In the area occupied by the mostly Mimbres White ware from the Jornada Mogollon, little is known west. archaeologically of the years between By about A.D . 1100 or the El Paso the abandonment of the large phase, the architecture had developed agricultural v1llages and the arrival of to above-ground, rectangular adobe the Spanish. It is possible that the buildings. Red and black paint were people remained but abandoned used on the brown pots. and a wide agriculture and reverted to hunting variety of ceramics were traded from and gathering. More information is neighboring areas. The population available for the Socorro area, where was concentrated into larger villages. ancestral Piro sites are dated by glaze Major technological changes (possibly ware ceramics to A.D. 1300-1540 channeling runoff on the baj ada (Marshall and Walt 1984). Toward the slopes) may have been required to end of this period , the population allow efficient control of agricultural increased substantially. resulting in production. From A.D. 1276 to the an architectural coalescence into turn of the fourteenth century. plaza-type villages and an expansion drought occurred throughout the into preViously unoccupied riverine Southwest. By about A.D. 1350. all areas. major village locations in the Following the initial Spanish Tularosa Basin were abandoned. and colonization of New Mexico in 1598, only a few later sites have been found these Piro pueb1os were Incorporated in the Trinity Basin. Sites along the into the Franciscan mission system. Rio Grande were occupied into the Missions were established at Senecu. fifteenth century. but these too were Pilabo (Socorro). Alamillo. and abandoned. Sevilleta (Hodge et al. 1945: Marshall North and northwest of the and Walt 1984). There were also at Jomada del Muerto were two areas least six e s tancias. or Spanish affiliated with the Anasazt culture. ranches. in the area (Marshall and One area is Ch upadera Mesa and the Walt 1984). During the Spanish upper drainage of Chupadera Arroyo period in New Mexico. El Camino (Montgomery and Bowman 1989): the Real de Tierro Adentro (the main other is in the Socorro area of the Rio route of travel between Mexico City Grande (Marshall and Walt 1984). and Santa Fe) passed through a Both areas experienced a similar portion of the Jomada del Muerto. By cultural development. The ceramic the 1630s the wagon train supplying sequence began with both gray and the entire province of New Mexico was brown wares: later. Elmendorf and making the round trip to Mexico City

9 _,__ _

at regular three-year intervals. material culture in the archaeological The Spanish were temporarily record is difficult. some evidence for forced out of New Mexico by a the Apache presence within the region concerted Indian uprising, the Pueblo has been recovered. The Oscura Revolt of 1680. Most of the Colonial Mountains are sacred to the Piro pueblos in the Socorro area. as Mescalero Apache (Laumbach 1991). well as the Tompiro and Tiwa pueblos and an extensive Apache campsite in the Salinas region of the has been reported in the northem Chupadera Mesa. had already been part of this range (Peter Eidenbach, abandoned durtng the 1670s because personal communication 1994). To of Apache raids. drought. and other the east, a ceramic scatter near problems. Converted Piro who went Chupadera Mesa at the northern end south with the Spanish were resettled of the Tularosa Basin is considered to in the El Paso, Texas, area. However, be Apachean (Sale and Laumbach throughout the seventeenth century, 1989). To the south, at least one rock small groups of Piro avoided Spanish art site in the San Andres Mountains control. Some may have found refuge is definitely Apachean {Sale 1991). in the Jornada (Tainter and Levine Within the San Andres Mountains 1987; Weber and Agogino 1968). is the Hembrillo Battlefield where, on April 6 and 7, 1880. Victoria and his Apache Indians Warm Springs Apache camped and engaged the U.S. Army. It is By the middle of the seventeenth noteworth y that only 63 years century. Mescalero and Chiricahua separate this event of the bow-and­ Apache are documented in the Rio arrow era from the nuclear age. Grande Valley and in the major mountain ranges to the east and Historic Ranchers and Developers west. These groups were seminomadic. with few permanent campsites; they After th e Spanish reconquista made rounds through a wide terrttory (reconquest) of New Mexico in to hunt and gather seasonally ripe 1692- 1696. the Piro pueblos in the resources (Basehart 1973). Adoption Socorro vicinity were not reoccupied. of the horse, originally reintroduced Throughout the eighteenth century, lo the New World by the Spanish. the Rio Grande Valley from Belen allowed them to expand their range south to El Paso had no settlements. and to engage in raiding on sedentary However. the Camino Real along the agriculturalists. However. the river and through the dry Jomada del particular destructiveness of their Muerto continued to be used. A series raids against the Colonial Piro of parajes (campsites) marked the pueblos (as with the Colonial Tompiro route of the Camino Real. During this and Tiwa pueblos of Chupadera Mesa) period, only occasional travellers and seems to have been directed primartly the Apache and possibly some Pueblo against the Spanish presence (Wilson refugees used the Jornada del Muerto. 1985). The Rio Grande Valley south of the The Spanish attempted to control Rio Puerco was resettled in t he the Apache and convert them to eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Catholicism. which the Apache as the res ult of grants to groups of resisted. Their relationship with the Hispanic farmers. The largest land Apache population was a recurring grants in the area, the two Pedro cycle of mutual antagonism. Armendaris grants, were made in Although identifying Apache 1819- 1820. They encompass much of

10 the river valley and flanking desert the ores and partly because of lhe terrain. For the remainder of the difficulty of ensuring an adequate Colonial period and much of the supply of water (Jones 1904). Some succeeding Mexican period, copper and lead ores were successfully settlement from Socorro to E1 Paso mined in the Mockingbird Gap and was prevented by Apache (and Hansonburg Districts (Laskey 1932). increasingly by Navajo} raiders. The The latter district also included the Armendaris Grant had to be Carthage coal fields to the east of San abandoned by 1825. because of Antonio. Coal was initially mined at tensions with Indians (Tainter and Carthage by lhe U.S. Army in the Levine 1987). Such efforts at 1850s; later, the field was a major settlement had more lasting success commercial producer. later in the Mexican period. Transportation and com- Meanwhile, traffic on the former munication improved as a network of Camino Real, now the Chihuahua stage lines was established across Road, increased with the advent of New Mexico territory. A line from trade with the United States via the White Oaks to San Antonio and Santa Fe Trail. Socorro passed through the area. The outbreak of war in 1845 stopping at Carthage and Hansonburg between Mexico and the United States and at Ozanne at the north end of brought the military into the Rio the Oscura Mountains. By 1880 the Grande Valley. This region, along with Santa Fe Railroad had reached San lands of the future states of Arizona. Marcial and proceeded across the California, and Utah, was ceded to Jomada del Muerto along the route of the United States with the Treaty of the Chihuahua Road. The railroad Guadalupe Hidalgo. which brought an had a major effect on the economy end to hostilities in 1848. Following and the material culture of the area, the U.S. occupation, population in providing both market outlets and a the area continued to increase flo od of mass-produced consumer because of the U.S. military, initially goods. at Fort Conrad (1851) and then Fort Craig (1854). Ranching After the annexation of New Mexico. the pressure of the expanding The first General Land Office nonnative population and a war of surveys of the New Mexico territory. attrition waged by the U.S. military undertaken in the 1850s. included forced the Apache onto reservations. much of the Jomada del Muerto. The The Chiricahua were eventually Surveyor General, under orders to deported to the eastern United States; survey potential arable land in the the Mescalero still occupy their public domain, had been informed reservation in the Sacramento that artesian-well development would Mountains, established in 1872. rapidly transform the J ornada del The 1870s saw mining booms in Muerto into cropland (Westphall the Magdalena Mountains and the 1965). Although this proved to be Black Range, and to the east at White untrue, Euro-American developers Oaks in the Sacramento Muntains. persisted in regarding the basin as a Prospectors also sought mineral potential resource to be exploited, resources in the Oscura and northern and various projects were seriously San Andres Mountains. Despite much considered for diverting water from optimistic promotion, production was the Rio Grande on a scale sufficient relatively marginal, partly because of to irrigate the basin for crop

11 production (Clark 1987). As it turned of 1916 allowed applicants to claim out, the immediate future of the 640 acres of grazing land per entry, Jornada del Muerto basin was in which provided a larger patented ranching rather than farming. nucleus for a family's operations. By the early 1880s, most of the Most of the land entries in the area arable lands in New Mexico that were of this type, although the oldest could be effectively irrigated for crop incorporated either a piece of production were already claimed purchased land or a traditional 40- (Clark 1987; Westphall 1965). There acre homestead. remained large areas of arid lands in The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 the public domain that were finally instituted the system of unsuitable for farming but were good grazing leases on public-domain lands range for grazing livestock. This administered by the General Land situation is illustrated in the Jornada Office (later the Bureau of Land del Muerto. On the west, the Rio Management). Many ranches had Grande valley was settled with experienced financial difficulties in farming communities dependent upon the 1920s, and the early 1930s a network of acequias (irrigation brought drought. but by the beginning ditches). In contrast, large parts of of the 1940s. conditions had the Jornada del Muerto were stabilized (Clark 1987). However, by controlled by a few ranchers who filed this time the War Department had homestead claims on the small decided that major portions of the number of available springs or hand­ Tularosa and Jornada basins. as well dug wells. as the mountains between, would be In the early 1870s, Texans with needed for a bombing and gunnery longhorn cattle began moving into range. Starting in late 1941, ranchers New Mexico. Within the next decade, in those areas were ordered to leave the cattle industry boomed, with their livestock. Patented lands encouraged by eastern and foreign and state sections were leased; public capital. In Socorro County. cattle lands were temporarily transferred increased from 9,000 to 70,000 head from the Interior Department to the between 1882 and 1884 (Ritch 1885). War Department. Although the intent Overstocking damaged the range but behind this temporary removal was to also eventually resulted in lower beef someday allow the families to return prices. which along with other factors to the lands, ranching never returned ended the boom. Climate also to the northern Jornada del Muerto contributed to the problems: a and the Tularosa Basin once these three-year drought beginning in 1890 lands became incorporated into the killed off much of the grama on the war effort. already depleted ranges of the Tularosa and Jornada basins World War II and the Cold War (Hutchinson 1956; Sonnichsen 1963). Barbed wire, introduced in the 1870s, Alamogordo Army Air Field, a was the only effective means of bombing and gunnery range. became enclosing large areas of range, but operational in the spring of 1942. The fencing the public domain was illegal air field's range included the northern (Westphall 1965). On the other hand, Jornada del Muerto, which was improved drilling equipment and subsequently selected in 1944 for windmills meant that new water testing the first nuclear weapon. The sources could be developed. successful Trinity Test took place on The Stock-Raising Homestead Act July 16, 1945. Within the following

12 weeks, the uranium gun weapon was and the private lands were again dropped on Hiroshima and the leased on an exclusive-use basis, as plutonium implosion weapon on they had been during the war. Public Nagasaki. A Japanese unconditional lands were permanently transferred to surrender followed shortly thereafter. the Department of Defense in 1952. The world war was over and the The proving ground became White I nuclear age had begun. Sands Missile Range in 1958. The The military installations Army acquired the state sections established within the region during Within the n1issile range in 1984. by the war continued in operation which time litigation over the private through the Cold War era and to the lands had also largely been present. The Alamogordo Army Air concluded. Field was reactivated in 1946 and became Hollon1an Air Force Base in 1948. White Sands Proving Ground was established by Anny Ordnance in July 1945 and extended over most of the former bombing and gunnery range. It was used for testing captured German V-2 rockets and was on its way to becoming the country's preeminent test and evaluation range for guided missiles. Initial facilities were built at the southern end of the range, in and to the east of the Post area. Beginning in the early 1950s, facilities were constructed in the northern portion of the range: these includ·ed Stallion Range Center and several cinetheodolite (i.e .. camera recording) stations. The Army also conducted salvage operations at the Trinity test site in the 1960s. By the middle 1970s. the Defense Nuclear Agency had established its own testing ground for nuclear simulations in the Trinity Site area. Additional Cold War-era activities include improvement and maintenance of existing roads. construction of new roads, modern fencing of Ground Zero. drilling of wells at some of the former ranches, and construction of observation and timing stations associated with testing programs. For a brief period after the war, the Army tried a cooperative-use arrangement with the ranchers. but this did not prove to be compatible with the proving ground's mission.

13 14 ARCHAEOLOGI ~CAL METHODOLOGY

An archaeological survey in a historic roads. or a building) complex area such as the Trinity represent more concentrated or Basin proceeds in several stages. repeated activities and is considered First, a search is made of the records to be a site. Therefore they are of the previous projects in the area. handled differently. This began with a call to the Archaeological sites. identified as Laboratory of Anthropology, housed one or more features or a at the Museum of New Mexico in concentration of artifacts. are Santa Fe. which is the central documented and mapped. The forms repository for all project and site are filed with the Labor atory of information in the state. The Anthropology at the Museum of New computer-aided seach yielded Mexico, and each site is assigned a information on the projects that have Laboratory of Ant hropology (LA) been conducted in the area and the number. which is unique in the state location and dating of any sites found for that site. The numbers used in during these projects. this report are lA numbers. Several recent surveys have been Archaeological Survey conducted in the Trinity Area. Because of its size and complexity, Safety was a concern duting the the whole area was not surveyed. A survey. However, according to the 640-acre block centered on the point WSMR Draft Environmental Impact of detonation at Ground Zero was Statement ( 1994), the Atomic Energy intensively surveyed. Linear surveys Commission has determined that were then conducted along the radiation in the area. and especially portions of WSMR Range Routes from the trinitite (the fused, green radiating from Ground Zero. These sand at Ground Zero), does not pose roads were originally laid out for the a health threat. On an average, the Trinity Test, with the main radiation levels are only 1 0 time instrumentation and communications greater than the region's natural lines paralleling them. The surveys background levels. Other hazards were carried out to a distance of such as rattlesnakes, heat 12.000 ft from Ground Zero. so that exhaustion. and twisted ankles were remains of monitoring instruments more of a threat. systematically installed at intervals The survey was conducted by from the point of detonation could be archaeologists walking the area, documented. The former road from generally spaced about 50 ft apart. If the George McDonald ranch house to they found something. they took Ground Zero was also surveyed. notes on the find, placed a point on a For the documentation process. 1:24.000 scale (7 .5-minute) USGS Trinity was treated as a separate map to indicate where it was found, archaeological site, defined as and determined whether the item was including all of lhe distinct areas an isolated occurrence or part of an relating to Trinity, such as archaeological site. While one or a instrumentation shelters with few artifacts represent isolated use of surrounding apparatus and artifacts. the area, a group of more items or Other discrete Trinity-related features (such as prehistoric hearths. features. such as individual

15 instrumentation stations. were Rhodes (1986), and Szasz (1984). recorded as features within the Trtnity For the historic ranching period, Site. General Land Office and Grazing Service maps and the 1947 Corps of Archival Research Engineers Master Acquisition Map were studied for information on land At Los Alamos National Laboratory use. Socorro County tax records and Archives (LANLA). Record Group U.S. Census Bureau records were A-84-0 19 contains declassified Tiinity routinely consulted as well. Project instrumentation location maps, construction drawings. and Oral History memoranda, a ll of which were consulted to aid in the identification Taped interviews With four former and interpret a tion of Trinity historic Manhattan Project technicians were features. This archival source conducted on June 8 and 9. 1993, by includes a schematic of the proposed oral historian Beth Morgan. The test area, which had been prepared interviews were condu cted during the prior to staking the test site in the 50th Manhattan District Reunion, Jomada del Muerto. Over a mosaic of June 7-1 1, 1993. in Los Alamos. New aeria l photographs, Manhattan Mexico. Manhattan Project personnel project staff rotated and adjusted this have scattered from coast to coast schematic until it fit the topography. since the bomb test on J uly 16. 1945. The principal instrumentation. so the reunion provided the rare communication, and roadway opportunity to talk to several people corridors radiating from Ground Zero during one visit to Los Alamos. do not precisely correspond to the Manhattan Project personnel cardinal directions, although the interviewed included Berlyn Brixner, designations of south, west, or north who set up the motion picture for the major installations were photography for the test of the first retained. The resulting test site atomic bomb at Trinity Site: Joseph layout, clearly discernible in aerial L. McKibben. who coordinated the photographs taken immediately timing of photography and following the nuclear blast, remains experiments wtth that of the visible today. Two schematics were explosion; Benjamin C. Diven, who obtained: on e details the placement of worked under Gen. Bruno B. Rossi on instrumentation within 4.500 ft of oscillograph measurements; and Ground Zero. A more general Richard J . Watts. who built and used schematic shows the placement of health-monitoring equipment. instruments outside the core area. The information from these Historic Trinity Project photographs eyewitness Trinity Site participants is also provided important information invaluable. As they h ad first-hand on the installations. experience when the site was in use Primary and s econdary sources (McKibben slept at Ground Zero the provided additional information on night before the blast). a nd in some the Trinity project. These include cases were involved in placing in the Bainbridge's (1976) text on the field many of the Items later personnel and test results, a picture encountered by archaeologists, they history by Los Alamos National are in a unique position to enlighten Laboratory ( 1986), and histories by researchers about the World War II Hoddeson and others ( 1993). Kunetka debris fron1 the nuclear weapons (1979). Maag a nd Rohrer (1982). research now strewn haphazardly

16 across the desert. For example, Diven descr1bed the nature of the coaxial cable running from the bomb tower to oscilloscopes in the field. BriXner was able to confirm the scene of the 100-ton TNT test preceding the test of the first nuclear bomb and to identify scored earth in photographs as an Alamogordo Bombing Range target. In combination with archival research, these interviews have helped to determine purpose, placement. and function of the cables, wires, measurement instruments. and other gear still present at Trinity Site.

17 - ---.----

w E s o Instrumentation Bunkers • Instrumentation Stations o Jumbo Tower • Ground Zero • 100TonTest

• Greens Baber Well

McDonald Bros. Ranch • !Base Camp

6/95 JH

Features ofTrinity and historic ranches.

18 TRINI1Y SITE

The Manhattan Project supercriticality by high explosives. To properly compress the plutonium to a In 1942. the Manhattan fraction of its original size, explosives Engineering District (MED) of the would have to be ignited within Corps of Engineers was fonned to microseconds. Designing the gun-type coordinate and direct the development d evice proved to be difficult but of the U.S. nuclear capability. Later relatively straightforward, when that year. Col. Leslie Groves of the compared with the almost insuperable Corps was promoted to General and problems involved in the implosive appointed to direct the new district. device (Hoddeson et al. 1993). He, in turn, appointed J. Robert In the spring of 1944, sample Oppenheimer as director of MED studies of the newly produced Project Y, which would be based at plutonium revealed that it had a high Los Ala mos Laboratory on the rate of s pontaneous fission and was Pajarito Plateau north of Santa Fe. therefore unusable in the gun-type Work b egan in secret at the device, although it was theoretically laboratory the following spring. possible to use it in the implosive The Laboratory's mission was to device. Thus, while work progressed undertake the research necessary to on the gun (Little Boy). which would develop a practical nuclear weapon use U-235 for its fissionable material. and to design and construct the others worked on the implosion actual device. This research. weapon (Fat Man). which would designated the Manhattan Project. employ Pu-239. There was sufficient proceeded under very tight security confidence in the gun that a field test restrictions. Available fission able was not considered necessary, but the materials, to be produced at Oak problematic implosion weapon would Ridge in Tennessee, Hanford in have to be tested. Washington, and other states, were uranium-235 (U-235) and The Setup plutonium-239 (Pu-239), both derived from ores mined at Ambrosia Lake, In order to quantify the effects of north of Grants, New Mexico, and at the test. the selected s ite had to be other Jlocales. relatively level. with predominately As r esear ch progressed at the clear weather. For safety and security, Laboratory. two alternate designs the area needed to be isolated and were developed. One used the gu n uninhabited (or depopulated). The site method, in which one subcritical had to be close enough to Los Alamos mass of fissionable material would be to minimize t ravel and transport fired as a projectile at a target time. yet far enough away to disguise consisting of another subcritical mass the connection, given the secrecy of fissionable material. When surrounding this unprecedented projectile met target. the two together research. Finally. the site had to have would constitute a supercritical mass, a railroad line n earby for delivering resulting in an explosion. The other Jumbo, the immense steel container method relied upon implosion, in that was being fabricated to enclose which a subcritical mass of the implosion weapon. thereby fissionable matertal is compressed to allowing recovery of the plutonium, if

19 the test were unsuccessful. {By the modifications to the physical layout t.ime of the test. this idea had been of the test area. The ranch house of abandoned , and Jumbo was not George McDonald. elder brother of used). Dave and Ross, was adapted as a field The area that best fit all of these laboratory for final assembly of the criteria was the northern Jomada del implosion weapon (see following Muerto. In the early fall of 1944, chapter). arrangements were made with the Fallout was raised as a Second Army Air Force, Alamogordo consideration only a few months Army Air Field. to dedicate an 18-by- before the test. Joseph Hirschfelder 24-mi area for the nuclear test within suggested that it might be a problem the Alamogordo Bombing Range. and that the test day should be A base camp was established at selected with no wind toward the ranch of Dave and Ross populated areas and no rain to settle McDonald (see following chapters). the pollutants. and construction was begun at the The facilities were planned to test site. increasing in momentum in conduct specific tests during the the spring. At the center of the test Trinity Test. Many facilities were built site-Ground Zero-a 100-ft steel to record the effects on state-of-the­ tower was erected. at the top of which art experimental equipment installed the implosion weapon would be around the test area. The simplest mounted. Radiating out from this test was conducted by Enrico Fermi. detonation point were roads and who dropped small pieces of paper cables leading to three groups of before. during, and after the air blast personnel and instrumentation reached him, in order to estimate the shelters located at a radius of 10,000 strength of the explosion. yd to the south. west, and north. The Three major tests were planned. personnel at these stations would be and the equipment was installed at closest to the blast. Closer to Ground the three observation stations located Zero were other shelters and stands 10.000 yd from the center of the blast. for remote cameras and The first task was to determine the instrumentation. Instruments were character and timing of the installed at measured distances from implosion. The Manhattan Project Ground Zero. All of these facilities scientists would attempt to time the were designed to ensure scientific difference between the first and last monitoring of the first nuclear detonations, allowing calculations of weapons test. the time between the initial explosion A rehearsal for the test was and the nuclear reaction from the conducted on May 7, 1945, when 100 core. tons of TNT were exploded on a 25-ft The second task was to record the wooden tower. At that time, it was intensity of the gamma rays released the largest single explosive event in by the fission and. through the history. Hundreds of pieces of radiochemical analysis of the soil, equipment. designed to monitor the determine the ratio of fission phenomena of the blast, gave products to unconverted plutonium. preliminary results of the TNT blast. The third task was to measure the Some were unsuccessful because damage caused by the explosion. switches were not flipped to activate Equipment was designed to record the recorders (Bainbridge 1976). blast pressure, earth shock. and After this trial run. Manhattan­ radiant heat to ignite structural project staff suggested major materials. Photographic and

20 spectrographic equipment would used as a field laboratory for record the general effects of the blast. assembly. During the use of Trinity Cameras with both black-and-white Site, these areas were connected by and color film would record the blast roads. communications and electrical and document the spectrum of light lines. and lines of sight necessary for emitted by the ball of fire . recording instruments and Observation planes would drop, by documentary photographs. parachute, pressure gauges and other equipment near the blast site. Detonation Point Despite rain, which caused a delay. on Monday, July 16, 1945, at The a ctive components had been 05:29:45 A.M. Mountain War Time, the installed within the core at the device was successfully detonated in George McDonald Ranch on Friday the northwest corner of the the 13th. The plutonium hemispheres Alamogordo Bombing Range. Its were assembled. From there. the strength was equivalent to 18,600 device was transported by vehicle to tons ofTNT. Ground Zero, where the high Light from the blast was seen as explosive and the radioactive far away as Santa Fe. New Mexico. to components were brought together in the north and El Paso. Texas, to the a tent at the base of a 100-ft tower. south. The blast rattled windows as There the detonation device was far away as Silver City and Grants. inserted into the bomb. The next New Mexico. Some of the wives at Los morning. July 14, the tent was Alamos watched for the blast from the removed, and the device was lifted to top of Sawyer Hill, the ski slope. the top of the tower and installed Others hiked into the Sandia inside a sheet-steel structure. The Mountains for a view. Others missed delicate detonator was inserted after the delayed blast. the gadget was raised to a sheet-steel house at the top of the tower. Every 6 The Archaeology of Trinity hours until it was detonated, the detonation cr ew climbed the tower to Nearly 50 years later. major make final installations a nd portions of the Trinity Test Site are inspections and to measure the still visible and recognizable. neutron background level. When the Archaeological survey was conducted weather cleared the moming of July on 640 acres around Ground Zero and 16, the decision was made to conduct on the four roads that radiated away the test. from Ground Zero. On the folloWing moming, a lead­ Trinity Site (designated as LA lined Army tank drove into Ground 1 00,000) consists of the detonation Zero to recover equipment. Equipped point, known as Ground Zero. and a with air tanks for the crew, the tank variety of stru ctures and features also had a scoop that could safely radiating from Ground Zero. These pick up debris. include instrum entation bunkers, The detonation of the first nuclear photography bunkers, personnel bomb actua l1y left a shallow observation bunkers. a quarry. and depression, which can still be seen. explosives magazines. Additional sites The depression was paved with green are Camp Trinity. the base camp for glass. At the center are the remains of project personnel located at the the four reinforced-concrete pylons, McDonald Brothers Ranch, and the extending to a depth of 6-8 ft below George McDonald Ranch, which was grade, that supported the legs of the

21 - ---..

Ground Zero Shortly after explosion (WSMR photograph.ftle).

22 trinitite. as dust. posed a potential radiation hazard. In 1952, the Atomic Energy Commission let a contract to clean up the site. Much of the trinitile was scraped up and buried in mounds. However. in large areas. fragments of trinitite still cover the surface. The principal features found between the security fences are four sets of reinforced-concrete piers. Each set consists of three piers, 111 I 2 in. square and averaging 5 ft high. placed 30 ft on center in a right angle. The only documentary reference for these features is a sketch draft of the instrumentation location map done sometime before June 23. 1945. On the map. in approximately the same locations. are features labeled tank stands, With emergency tank roads leading away from Ground Zero. Ground Zero Tower. According to Ted Brown (personal communication. 1994). the 100-ft tall steel tower, which Albuquerque contractor whose crew measured 25 ft square at its base. did most of the construction at the Today. west of the tower is a structure test site, there had been a plan to protecting a fragment (measuring actually station Army tanks at these approximately 18 by 48 ft) of the points, but the idea was abandoned. sheet of fused soil-trinitite-that Adjacent to the northern tank stand was produced by the heat of the blast. are the remains of several pieces of The brittle trinitite layer. extending to equipment designed for test an average depth of 11 12 in., is intact measurements: steel frames dad in although partially covered by several copper and concentric copper pipes. inches of wind-blown fill. Inside the outer fence are the remains Approximately 6 acres around the of the original 4-by-4-in. fence posts tower rema ins a nd the trinitite and sheep wire installed around bunker were bladed; any artifacts that Ground Zero in Noven1ber 1945. survived the blast within this area no Ground Zero is now marked by a longer remain. monument. and the immediate Between the inner and outer vicinity is protected by a security security fences. the site surface, with fence. the exception of the 6-acre cleared The explosion was described by area. has been only partially bladed. observers as a blinding light more Within this area is a series of linear intense than the sun. Those up to 20 mounds, the result of attempts to mi away also felt a sensation of heat dispose of the trinitite. After the test, on exposed skin. Looking through the sheet of trinitite extended for 350 dark glasses. observers saw a to 400 yd from Ground Zero. By the conglomerate of rising flames. Within early 1950s. the sheet had a few seconds. the flames lost their fragmented, and the deteriorating brightness, turning into a pillar of

23 Northwest 600 today (HSR photopgraph.file].

-

Remains ofNorth 800 bunker (HSR pfwtographjUe}.

24 smoke. This huge smoke cloud June 1945. it was probably designed billowed into the sky. expanding like in response to a late decision to a gigantic mushroom toward the provide more means of obtaining clouds (Fermi estimated up to 30.000 radiation measurements and data ft). The cloud hung there. until the relating to the fission process. Today. wind began to disperse it. As the sun the wooden retaining walls at the came up. air currents swept entrance are deteriorating and the radioactive fallout down into the door is missing. but the structure basin from where it had been trapped itself is intact and s tructurally stable. tn the inversion layer. No artifacts were observed in the · Photographs taken of Ground Zero vicinity of the shelter. after the explosion show a circular scar on the ground. Trinttite was one result of the intense heat generated by the Trinity Test. However, the heat caused the vegetation to burn in a starburst pattern outward from Ground Zero up to 2.000 ft. It is suggested that the flames lept outward, stopping only at major vegetation that would not catch instantly. Some evidence of the burned so11 has been found a few inches deep in eroded areas near Ground Zero. These have yet to be tested. The vegetation had started to come back by 1947. Ground Zero Northwest 600 Shelter

A series of unstaffed instru­ mentation and camera bunkers were Instrumentation bunker at built radiating out from Ground Zero. Northwest 600. Northwest 600 s helter is the closest bunker to Ground Zero. 600 yd from 800 Shelters the detonation point. This subterranean shelter is constructed of Visible from Ground Zero, the reinforced concrete. with an earthen West 800 shelter is an berm above. Beyond the entry is a instrumentation bunker. It consists baffled passage that leads to a of a cubical chamber of r einforced chamber measuring 7 by 12 ft. The concrete surrounded by an earthen wooden forms were retained to serve berm. The wooden forms were retained • as sheathing for the walls and ceiling. on the interior for sheathing. Large Two steel pipes project above the concrete pipes are set into the berm. chamber. on the exterior. with steel protecting the chamber's three plates bolted over the tops. No viewing ports toward Ground Zero: a obVious shaft connects these pipes fourth Viewing port. of steel pipe, is With the chamber below. No historic set in the south wall at an angle. draWings exist for the shelter to Over the chamber is earthen fill and a explain the purpose of the pipes. concrete slab. The west wall of the Since the shelter was not built until chamber extends to form a retaining

25 wall for the fill. In front. the slab bunker is worse than that of West slopes down to the tops of the pipes. 800. since more of the berm and earth The bunker was designed for fill have eroded. The wooden high-speed Fastax cameras, but it revetments have almost entirely was later decided to mount the collapsed. To the east are concrete cameras outside the bunker. on sleds fragments that are probably the attached to cables for retrieval. remains of the slab for the can1era During the test, the bunker contained sled. Posts for the communication equipment for measuring implosion line are still visible. A stake placed characteristics (Bainbridge 1976). southwest of the bunkers helped The bunker as built involved scientists measure earth substantial changes from the displacement. Their locations were construction drawing. The chamber surveyed before and after the blast. was set on grade rather than partly below, and the configuration of the berm was modified. To protect the front viewing ports, concrete pipe of 18-in. and 24-in. interior diameter was substituted for the three 16-in. steel pipes that were specified. Because the fronts of the concrete pipes were not cut on an angle as the steel would have been, the sloped slab had to be extended by a third of its length. The chamber is relatively intact. although its door is missing. Only one of theviewing ports still has a 112-in. lens of bulletproof glass. The blast blew away much of the berm and earth fill; wind and water erosion continue to destabilize the top slabs and the concrete pipes. Portions of the berm's wooden revetments are .::::J Ground Zero collapsing. Fragments of concrete to the south of the bunker may be the remains of Instrumentation bunker at North 800. the slab for the camera sled. West of the bunker. a few fragments of glass 1 00-Ton Test Area and a small amount of building debris (lumber fragments and nails) were A 100-ton TNT test provided data observed. to build shock-proof shelters for the The North 800 bunker. also an final test and helped determine the instrumentation bunker. is identical types of equipment needed for the to that at West 800, except for minor final test. For the May 7 trial run at details. It had also been designed to Trinity, 100-tons of TNT were stacked contain Fastax cameras. As at West on a wooden platform approximately 800. the cameras were ultimately 20 ft high. Some fissionable material placed outside for the test, and the was included in the test, "to simulate, bunker was used for recording at a low level, the radioactive radiation (Feature A). Today. products expected from the nuclear structurally. the condition of this explosion" (Los Alamos National

26 Laboratory 1986). During the trial a layer of fill, has a current height of blast. the wooden platform was 2 ft 6 in. On top of the bunker is a completely obliterated. box, 2 ft square and 1 ft high, constructed of 2-by-8-in. boards. In the top of the box is an opening 4 in. square. The bunker was built partly below grade and was covered with earth, but much of this has eroded. The entire structure is deteriorating, and the roof is unsound. No artifacts were observed in the immediate vicinity of the bunker. Jumbo and its Tower

During the initial planning for the test. Manhattan Project personnel realized that testing the implosion bomb would use one-third of the available supply of radioactive plutonium. Jumbo was originally designed as a large cannister to trap the plutonium during the explosion for later reuse. Robert Oppenheimer specified that the Jumbo be 25ft long and 12 ft in diameter, with 6-in. walls reinforced with an 8-in. steel band. The cannister was built by Babcoek and Wilcox Corporation in Barberton, Ohio, and transported to New Mexieo on a special railroad car. Jumbo was unloaded from the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway at Pope, New Plaiformjor 1 00-ton TNT test, prior to Mexico, in the Spring of 1945. The explosion (\VSMR photographftle). container was transported on a 64- wheel trailer pulled by bulldozers. The test site for the 100-ton blast which were also undoubtedly used to was 800 yd south-southeast of the develop what is now known as the Trinity Ground Zero. The blast made Govemment Road. a crater 5 ft deep and 30 ft in Today, 700 yd northwest of Ground diameter. No trace of the structure or Zero are the remains of the tower this ground zero remains, but 1, 100 ft ortginally erected in June 1945 to due west of this point is a small hold Jumbo. For the test, the empty earthen and wood bunker used for container was set on end, its lower recording the rehearsal blast. The hemisphere s e t below grade in bunker. measuring 4 by 5 ft. is framed concrete. The upper end was attached with 4-by-6-in. timbers. sided with 2- by a tension cable to the top of the by-6-in. lumber, and roofed with 2-by- surrounding rectilinear steel tower, 10-in. boards. The west entrance is 3 which was 75ft high and 18ft square ft Wide and flanked by revetments of (Szasz 1984). 2-by-12-in. planks. The interior, with By July, subsequent testing made

27 Transporting Jumbo from Pope. New Mexico, to Trinity (WSMR photographflle).

Jumbo and tower after tower a.jter expLosion (WSMR photogra.phfile]. 28 1t evident that Jumbo would not be oscilloscopes in the bunker (Berlyn needed. but it remained at the site. Brixner interview. June 9, 1993). Like The Ttinity test flattened the tower. the bunker at Northwest 600. this but only tilted Jumbo. After the test, bunker was designed as a late much of the tower wreckage was addition for the purpose of obtaining removed. and Jumbo remained in more data relating to implosion place until 1947 . General Groves characteristics (J. H. Williams to K. realized that the money spent on T. Bainbridge. memorandum. 18 May building and moving Jumbo. over 1945). $1.000.000. might be viewed unfavorably by a congresional investigation. He sent an explosives expert to blow it up. An improperly conducted explosives test blew out the ends. Two fragments are visible in the vicinity of the lower remains: one landed 1.800 ft away. The central feature of this area is an excavation 15 ft deep and averaging 100 ft across. With a track leading out to the southwest. Jumbo was buried here after its partial destruction. was disinterred in 1951, and was finally removed to the outer Ground Zero gate in the early 1970s. Around the excavation are mounds of nu. Two of these. on the east. have high concentrations of trtnitite. In and around the mounds are sections of steel and fragments of concrete. the remaining wreckage of the Jumbo tower and its fooUngs. Other building Instrumentation bunker at North 1000. debris consists of piles and scatters of lumber. Most of the copper lining has been stripped from the interior of the North 1000 Bunker bunker and the door is missing. but otherwise it is intact and structurally The instrumentation bunker at stable. A frame extension was built in North 1000 is a rectangular the rear. but no building debris was reinfor ced-concrete chamber. Its observed at or near that location. To north wall is raised to form a retainer the north of the bunker are the for the earthen berm. The 2-by-4-in. remains of two pieces of recording boards of the interior wooden form. equipment. apparently for recording which were left in place, served as radiation. One consisted of three nailers for wooden sheathing that was 16-in. sheet-metal cylinders set into a then overlaid with sheets of copper. A wooden stand. The other involved steel pipe protrudes through the roof. metal foil in a wooden frame. Two above the berm. In the south wall are other features to the north consist conduits for coaxial cables carrying only of deteriorated lumber and are an e lectromagnetic signal from unidentifiable. A communication-line detectors at Ground Zero to post is visible. A stake marked LASL

29 (Los Alamos Scientific Laboratories). traps. A source of micaceous gravel located southwest of the bunker. was found close to Ground Zero. This dates to post-1945 activity. gravel was spread 6 in. deep on the Artifacts consist of a few glass and roads. watered. and then primed with metal fragments, two paint cans. and asphalt (Szasz 1984). Over 20 mi of part of a louvered hood from the two roads were treated in this fashion. generators that provided power to the Historic maps name these bunker. roads-Vatican Road to the west toward the Rio Grande. Pennsylvania Explosives Magazines Avenue to Base Camp, and Broadway to the northwest. toward what is now The explosives magazines are Stallion Range Center. located approximately 3.500 yd south In addition to the Vatican or of Ground Zero. On the south are the Government Road. over which Jumbo remains of a rectangular structure was transported, possibly the most oriented east-west with 18-in. important road was the 2-mi-long reinforced-concrete walls. The road built from the George McDonald structure is open on the west end; the Ranch to the detonation point. This other sides are bermed with earth. road was used to transfer the core of The space inside the walls is 10 by 20 the bomb from its assembly location ft; measuring from a layer of fill in the northeast room of the George within the walls, the maximum McDonald Ranch to Ground Zero. height of the walls is 6112 ft. Along This road is no longer used, although the top of the walls is a 2-by-6-in. its location can be traced on aerial plate. The roof is missing, as are the photographs. framework and door that enclosed the structure on the west. Not Instrumentation and surprisingly, the scatter of building Commwtication Lines debris around the structure consists of fragments of lumber and asphalt The lack of communication became roofing. nails. bolts. and hinges. obvious during the May TNT test. A Approximately 850 ft to the north are second request was made for two small, deteriorated wooden additional comn1unications lines, and structures. These were used for lines were needed for the monitoring storing prirnacord and explosive caps instruments. The equipment lined the or signal rockets for the test. while roads from Ground Zero toward the the concrete structure was built to stations at 10.000 yd north, south. hold 6,000 lb of explosive charges. and west. These were joined by a series of communication lines. Quarry and Roads Some of the equipment was set to start recording prior to the blast. One complaint from the TNT test while other pieces of equipment in May was the condition of the roads required a pulse lOOOth of a second (Bainbridge 1976). As people and ahead o.f the test to start. Timing for equipment were moved to the Base the equipment was important, and Camp and construction progressed at Joseph McKibben was in charge of the test site, the dirt roads became a coordinating all the requirements of major problem. During the dry spring. the various tests. Additionally. the they undoubtly became deep in dust: observation bunkers and the Base after rain storms during summer. the Camp were connected by telephone deep ruts would have turned into mud lines and a public-address system.

30 The latter contributed to the morale West 10,000 and South 10.000. This at Base Camp. reputed to be a happy relief line through an camp. as con tinuous updates on the instrumentation station along the test were broadcast during the last road to Base Camp was planned in tense hours. the event that the blast destroyed the Some of the instrumentation main line. stations were linked by coaxial cable Some 500 mi of communication buried beneath the ground. These wire were strung across the site. cables were buried shortly before the Standing posts. some with blast. reflecting ongoing technical crosspieces. remain in place along the adjustments being proposed. three main roads to the site, with approved. and constructed by ceramic insula tors. batteries, and Manhattan Project personnel as the fragments of wire scattered on the nuclear countdown approached (Ted ground below. Those along WSMR Brown, personal communication Route 13, north and south of Ground 1994) . Other wires provided Zero, consist of pairs of posts communication links between the averaging 6 ft tall and 8 ft apart, with observation bunkers, Base Camp. and 2-by-6-in. crosspieces. The posts other features. A secondary line cross­ south of West 800 average 5 ft in cuts these lines, 1.500 yd from height and are single. with braced 2- Ground Zero, between the roads to by-4-in. crosspieces. There is no

Main communication lines at Trinity Site (WSMR photographfrle).

31 SECRET~ - ....I to tbie ~:t1: e ~ t~ 25% i~cre&ae in volume t urned 1n 41- roct to the Dtapoaal Yard. Peraormol or t ho P1epoaal Unit a.ro nov at Tr init y Site, Ybiob 1.1 located one•hi.ID4red 11111u t'rom tbe baao &n4 11 t ho locaUcm or the t1.rat Atca Bee exploe1ou, rocla1.-1ns oloc:­ tr1.o aabla, wire, aD4 other nluable ealnge •tor1al•. lfe­ sot1ated. b1dl are 1D pros:H•• tor ' " • l&le or 60 t on• or acnp ~em aD4 ateel e.t tbia aa.- l oc:at10Zl.

INric& the April period, rec:laa t 1~ I.Dd Mlna• ~pera­ t1cma •' t'r1Ait7 lite were oca.pleted v l th t he reeult that a~tel-7 t6o,ooo worth or •ter lal vae roc:lailled &DIS ob&aaele4 back far soYerament uae. li;ht• thoua&Dd poUDda of c.opper aD4 .app:oaxiate~ 50, 000 telophozut inaul&tora were ret&iAed 1n tbe 41apoaal Jard. r or re-eale. 1'be total coat t o tbt sovermMnt t or thia opera.t1a:D vae aa.th1na l ooe than t5oo ~oo.

Report of salvage operations at Trinity Site, Historical Report of 1 March to 30 April, 1953, 6540th Missile Test Wing, Air Force MissUe Test Center, HoUoman Air Force Base, New MexicO (HSR Microfilm. Roll31733, p. 60).

32 evidence that lines were strung on Guard Stations fence posts. To protect the wires from the Maps s how locations of guard weather , 10.000 ft of rubber garden stations . but these were very hose was ordered. In addition to the temporary. Photographs from the test other supplies needed. rubber hose show guard stations in lean-to tents was just one of the supplies that were or vehicles parked along the road to difficult to obtain for the test (Los control access to different parts of the Alamos National Laboratory 1986). test area. Since these were such Archaeological s urvey has yielded ephemeral structures. little or no stands of a few poles. and lengths of evidence of them would be expected communication wire and insulators on t he ground. except possibly C­ are found on the ground. Also along ration cans. the lines a re instrumentation s tands and boxes a nd piles of batteries. The Obseroation Bunkers ltnes have been t raced toward the north. west. and sou th personnel Three major personnel observation bunkers. No evidence of an eastern bunkers were built at 10.000 yd from line or road has been found. although Ground Zero: t hese were the only an eastern road appears on the bunkers staffed during the blast. schematic of the instrumentation. Each bunker was under the In the 1950s. the Army conducted leader ship of a different scientist: salvage operations at the Trinity test s pecialized tests were slated for each site, removing the wooden cross anns. bunker. As plann ed. each location insula tors. and copper wire of the had a personnel bunker. a camera communication and instrumentation bunker. and a generator bunker. lines. Other salvaged items included South 10.000 also included a water­ steel and iron fragments. storage tank.

Ground Zero

Observation Bunker

Generator Bunker

LayoutofNorth 10.000.

33 The observation bunkers were built with the rest of the nuclear test site. of wood: the walls were reinforced A water tower and a 16-ft-sq Anny with concrete. as were the roofs. To hutment were located south of the protect the observers. the bunkers personnel bunker. were buried under layers of earth. The bunkers were demolished by Circular windows glazed with bullet­ the Army in the 1960s because the proof glass allowed observation of the deteriorating buildings posed a safety detonation. hazard. On the location of the former Robert R. Wilson and Henry personnel bunker is a mound of earth Barnett were in charge of the North intermixed with building debris: 10.000 bunker. Wilson was in charge fragments of the concrete slab may lie of calculating the nuclear reaction beneath. To the west is the concrete time. John Manley and Jim Nolan slab of the generator bunker, were responsible for the West 10,000 surrounded by more building debris. bunker. Manley was supervising The slab n1easures 13 ft 6 in. by 16 ft equipment to record blast pressure. and according to Trinity construction Frank Oppenheimer and Louis documents was 2 ft 6 in. thick. Only Hemplemann were in charge of South the upper 6 in. is exposed. At the 10.000. From here. Robert north end of the site are stubs Oppenheimer watched the blast. and (average height 16 in.) of two 6-by-6- Donald Hornig supervised the Stop in. juniper posts. two 7 in. diameter sWitch, the only way to prevent the posts. and a pole 10 in. diameter explosion once the countdown began. post. Their location indicates that Once the explosion occurred. these objects are remnants of the medical personnel took charge of each communication and instrumentation observation bunker. "'At first there lines. although their alignment is was no sign of danger. Then suddenly. now irregular. the instruments at North 10,000 Building debris on the site is began clicking rapidly. showing that composed of lumber mixed with nails. radioactivity was on the rise. Henry bolts. and other hardware. Several Barnett. in charge of the shelter. gave steel tie-rods are scattered across the the order to evacuate" (Los Alamos site. In the southwest portion of the National Laboratory 1986:55). It was site there is a small scatter of a false alarn1, and none of the other concrete fragments with a small bunkers was evacuated. concentration of ceramic insulators South 10,000 (LA 81601) is located nearby. In the southeast located on the lowest portion of the portion of the site near the base of gradual slope that extends from the the mound is a small concentration base of the Little Burro Mountains of ceramic housings for electrical into the Trinity Basin. switches. These remains indicate South 10.000 originally consisted extremely thorough demolition. of a control and personnel bunker. The military debris lies over the with generator bunker and radar remains of a prehistoric activity area facility to the west. The bunkers. consisting of a fire-cracked rock constructed of earth and wood with concentration With three fragments of concrete slabs above, were identical to ground stone and three pieces of facilHies at West and North 10.000 chipped-stone debitage. During (LA 100.890 and LA 15868). previous recordation of the site. an Communication and instrumentation isolated Folsom projectile point lines entered the area from the fragment was observed. northeast. connecting South 10.000 Wes t 10, 000 (LA 100.890)

34 included an observation bunker, a have been. is now a mound. The area generator bunker. and a camera north of this mound contains much bunker. all affiliated with the test. building debris. primarily lumber The observation and generator fragments mixed with nails, bolts. bunkers were constructed of earth and other hardware. Two wooden post and wood with concrete slabs above. stubs in the extreme northern portion The camera bunker was constructed of the site are remnants of the of concrete with a frame extension in communication and instrumentation the rear. Communication and lines. Scattered ln and around the instrumentation lines connected building debris are associated Trinity West 10.000 with the rest of artifacts: ceramic insulators, the test site to the east. West of the battertes. fuel cans. and numerous personnel bunker was a radar unidentifiable metal items and antenna and an Army hutment. The fragments. tnstaHatton also inc luded a A few premilltary domestic searchlight. artifacts occur east of the camera bunker at West 10.000: a lock fragment with a mineral doorknob. one earthenware sherd. and three fragments of purple glass. The assemblage could indicate a possible occupation of the site during the histortc ranching pertod. However, the disturbed condition of the site and the lack of histortc documents make it difficult to identify the type of site. The eastern portion of the site, where the bunker building debris and artifacts are scattered. has been subjected to extensive ground disturbance. North 10.000 (LA 15868) is another observation bunker with a generator bunker and a camer a bunker. 'The personnel and gener ator Paleoind.ian point found at bunkers were constru cted of earth South 10,000. and wood with concrete slabs above. The camera bunker was constructed of concrete with a frame extension in The observation and generator the rear. The bunkers were grouped. bunkers were demolished by the Anny with the personnel bunker on the tn the 1960s because the detertorating east. the generator bunker on the buildings posed a safety hazard. but west, and the camera bunker between the camera bunker is extant. South of them. Radiating from Ground Zero to the camera bunker. elevated on a low the south. communication and mound. is the concrete slab. instrumentation lines connected measuring 13 ft 4 in. by 16 ft. that North 10,000 with the rest of the test formed the roof of the generator site. North of the personnel bunker bunker: only the top surface of the was an Army hutment. The slab is V1stble. Further to the south, installation a lso included a where the personnel bunker would searchlight.

35 7nnit:y South 10,000 before blast (WSMRphotographjUe).

36 which is much less evident on this stte than at South 10.000 or West 10,000. is limited to steel tie-rods and fragments of concrete scattered between the camera bunker and the former concrete roof of the generator bunker. Also contrasting with other Trinity 1 0.000-yd facilities is the extent of preservation of the communication line here. Although collapsed, much of the crosspieces. wire, and insulators are intact on the ground. Only three Trinity-related artifacts were observed on the site: two C-ration cans and a fuel can. A prehistoric granitic one-hand mana represents earlier use. When the personnel and generator bunkers were demolished in the 1960s, a depression was created around the camera shelter. As a result, water erosion has undercut the bottom slab of the structure and is destabilizing it.

Instrumentation Debris

Instrumentation boxes, batteries, pieces of wood, and other debris were documented throughout the Trinity area. Instrument boxes served many documentation functions during the test. According to Bainbridge (1976). radiation was recorded by instruments at ground level and over Instrumentation inside North 10,000 Trinity on balloons and airplanes. (WSMR photographflle). Delayed neutron levels were obtained from a catcher with cellophane and The personnel and generator 25 plates rr on the instrumentation bunkers were demolished in the diagram) and in airplanes over the 1960s, but the camera bunker is site. Delayed gamma rays were extant. Partially buried in a low recorded with ionization chambers mound north of the camera bunker is and recorders (C and Don diagram). the concrete slab that once formed Piezo quartz gauges and amplifiers the roof for the generator bunker. provided information at ground level While to the south and southeast are on the blast pressure: these were two large fragments, also partially installed along the main roads to the buried, of the concrete slab for the North 10.000 and South 10,000 personnel bunker. Building debris. facilities (A and B on diagram). Also

37 '''"On•• <::. Pier• Cuet ""''hr.. , • a,.,., St~u•••h uuc "' 0 G•••• ..dhl4h Urtc I 0 e.., .. ""' 0 hWt ... (;,n\ U

G ~ r...... ~.,. • U C••.Nt.u.u ~ • • •u~w,,.u lOt. " f, .fii'IO:.iti(,IINU' • fa~MWMI'"' .. 1!1 CMifc•«rCit.: cn .. • lu•n \lf'lat t• C...-t n 0 • , ... • • ~ u ••~ ,. , .... ,u, .-.....n Q .: h •••ora Lu.._ A e ,...... • -...... ~tid! • ,.. .. ,..1~..,~ , ,..... ,..... C c•f~"' 1.••«'1 - --·- ·- •~~tlll.d IIH rU~tCulct - ----

Schematic of instrumentation ofTrinity S ite. 38 Suspended microphonefo r excess velocity measure (WSMR photograph.file).

•'\...... __~ .~...... ,,

•

... . ' ...... ·~' c ...... ' .~· -_.. ~... ·.. . ~ ~ .... . ,.... ~..., -~ ...... r """' ..-- ., . . ! ' ~ - -~ Instrumentation boxes (WSMR photograph file). 39 A X Pi~~o Ciaug~

B 0 Piezo Gause Amplifier

c ~ Gamma Scntlneb (type A) G+ 0 X Gamma Sonuncls (type 8) ~ I· E (!:. Geopl'lone \ F 0 Paper Bo~ Cia uaes G+ l Cit- Ci fl Flasl'l Bombs ~ . H a R4 Ground Station ..,.. ~ ( R4 B311oon W1nch r7 J , E. D. G. I~ ~\G+\ ~ ~ ~ ~ J( A Mack Slit Cameras

t e Impulse Meters

M ~ 8 Condenser G a uges ~ I I I II "'- ~ I I N e Excess Velocity G:~ugcs 0 ... Tank Ranse Poles p ,. Tank Fhc Poles ~ 0 ct Q j- Prim:~can2 Stuion R Neutron Balloon -t{j ~ti \" ~ - +N J s ~ Neutron B:~lloon Wincl\ +G , I/ I T ~ Neutron Ground Station -+G +N \~ / Ro3ds Center L1nes - .. - ·-·- -+G \-IT ~ / Buried Wires or Cables -----

Planned instrumentation for Trinity core area. measuring blast pressure were the fire ball; and mach wave and air condenser gauges. which were velocity. It is estimated that over installed along the road to 100.000 photographic images, mostly Westl 0,000 and dropped from 829 from motion-picture frames. were planes (M on diagram). taken to document different aspects Ex,cess velocity gauges were of the test. The color photographs installed away from the road but on a were not released, because the color linear alignment through Ground of the blast provided information on Zero and out about halfway to the the temperature of the fire ball. George McDonald Ranch House (N on diagram). These were designed to pick up the blast wave and record its time of arrival. Approximately 50 switch­ operated torpex flash bombs within the core area provided similar information (G on diagram): they went ofT with blast pressure and were recorded photographically. Within the core area. these instruments were the major ones set up away from the major access roads. Peak pressure of the blast wave was recorded with piston liquid and orifice gauges designed to force water through a set of constrictions (L on diagram) and paper gauges (F on diagram). The paper gauges were boxes with an aluminum diaphragm covering 12 holes; the pressure was measured by noting which holes blew out. These were installed along the major access roads. Mass velocity was documented with suspended primacord and magnesium flash powder. which was recorded by Fastax cameras (Q on diagram). These were placed within 1.500 ft of Ground Zero. Instrumentation boxfound during To measure earth shock. suroey {HSR photograph file). geophones were installed along the access roads to North and South Further historic documentation of 10,000. Five seismographs were the types of instrumentation that installed at Trinity. and remote were used is necessary. Historic seismographs were placed 1n Tucson, photographs show various styles of El Paso, and Denver. Steel stakes metal boxes with instruments. These were used to measure horizontal and raise questions about what the vertical displacement of the earth. recorders and cameras in the boxes Cameras were used to record many looked like and what might be left of other aspects of the test. including the instruments among the artifacts size. shape, behavior. and path of the recorded within the Trinity Site. The fire ball; radiation and temperature of instruments and recorders

41 undoubtedly were removed, in most Oscura Mountains, because cases. leaving only stands. wires, observation of the explosion would batteries. or similar nondiagnostic have been blocked. Survey at the traces of what might have been western lava bed may reveal evidence installed there. of a camp used for obsenration, alpha and gamma meters, tolerance tests, Detached Areas and radio communication.

Three Trinity-related areas have Trinity Summary not been documented since they lie beyond the NHL boundaries. These Throughout the Trinity test. from areas consist of Campana Hill. the its inception at Los Alamos to the Government Road. and a possible final countdown. the operations were range camp. characterized by adaptability. Manhattan Project scientists and flexibility, and innovation. Before the VIPs assembled during the. early test site on the Jomada was staked, a morning hours of July 16, 1945, to schematic had been prepared. At the observe the nuclear test at the Cerro same time. the teams identified de la Capana (commonly called existing local improvements-roads, Campania or Compagnia in the wells. houses-that could be used for literature}, 22 mi northwest of the project. Ground Zero. This area lies outside The equipment used to monitor the Trinity Site boundary on public the test was fabricated especially for land administered by the Bureau of this test except for only a few cases. Land Management (BLM). At present, An example is the mechanical WSMR leases the area. impulse gauges. Conversely. most of it Whether facilities to monitor the was devised on-site, with considerable nuclear blast had been constructed at ingenuity, from commonly available this observation point has not been materials and hardware. As a result, ascertained. From the air it is the archaeological record is possible to see the jeep road to the sometimes difficult to interpret, since top of the hill. much of it consists of generic Government Road was constructed fragm.ents of pipe, lumber. nuts and in 1944-1945 to transport Jumbo bolts, etc., rather than specialized from a railroad siding at Pope, south (and thus specifically identifiable) of Trinity, to Ground Zero. Paralleling apparatuses. this roadway. instrumentation and Changes in bunker designs began communication lines were at Los Alamos. prior to construction constructed, connecting Ground Zero of the Trinity Site. A comparison of to facilities erected at West 10,000 the preliminary site designs with the (LA 100.890). Within the Trinity Site, final construction drawings shows a the former Government Road is now a concern for strength and protection. paved range road. Portions of the road In the designs for the personnel and may exist across BLM land to Pope. generator bunkers, structural Bainbridge (1976:34) mentions members were consistently scaled tests scheduled for a range camp at upward (8-by-8-in. posts rather than the Lava Bed. There is a lava bed 6-by-6-in. posts, 1 0-by-l 0-in. beams between Trinity site and Pope, to the rather than 6-by-1 0-in. beams, and so west of the present WSMR boundary. on). The orig.inal design for the Fastax This is almost certainly not the lava camera bunkers at West and North bed on Mailpais to the east of the 800 had only a front berm; this was

42 expanded to surround most of the some is federal grazing land, and structure. According to Bainbridge some is state grazing land." The land (1976). the bunkers were ultimately is still contaminated. but now at designed to withstand the force of a such a low level as to pose a 200-kiloton blast. negligible hazard. The radioactivity is Modifications continued In the concentrated in the trinitite, which field. For the main camera bunkers at possesses gamma and beta radiation. West and North 10.000, the ports The gamma radiation is in minute were reconfigured and the projecting quantities, while the beta radiation slab on the bunker at North 10. 000 would only pose a hazard if a sizable was reduced by two-thirds. For the quantity were ingested. Much of the Fastax camera bunkers. concrete trinitite has been burled or removed culvert sections were substituted for by souvenir hunters over the years. the steel pipe that was specified. Two Buried trinitite was later retrieved new bunker designs. for Northwest from pits. placed in barrels, and 600 and North 1000, were produced removed from the area. just before the test. because of last­ Ground Zero was initially fenced minute concerns about obtaining with barbed wire and wooden posts in sufficient data on implosion and late August 1945. and mounted radiation. patrols continued around the As construction continued on perimeter until early 194 7 {Maag and facilities at Trinity. procurement was Rohrer 1982). In 1946. an octagonal identified as a problem (LANL 1986). reinforced-concrete bunker was Some of the adaptations may have constructed 40 ft below grade at a been dictated by availability of point 550 yd east of Ground Zero. for supplies. the purpose of testing the design of The physical remains of the Trinity an alpha-n initiator. The radioactive test. from artifacts to structures. charge did not detonate successfully. reveal that this was an enterprise but the experiment was repeated at a with constantly changing parameters. point 550 yd north of Ground Zero; influenced by the availability of time. the second time it worked. materials, and equipment, and by In 194 7, Jumbo was damaged both continually revised calculations during an improperly conducted and sheer guesswork. since nothing explosives test of the container's like this had ever been attempted. design. Buried after this test. Jumbo was disinterred in 1951 and finally Trinity Site Since July 1945 removed to the outer Ground Zero gate in the early 1970s. In a memorandum written in May The Army authorized salvage 1945. K. T. Bainbridge expressed his operations at the Trinity test site in concerns about the effects of the test 1952. These activities included the on the Immediate landscape itself: "It removal of the wooden cross arms, may be that sufficient 49 [plutonium] insulators, and copper wire from the is left in the soil in the vicinity of the communication and instrumentation shot to make it hazardous for a lines. Steel and iron fragments were considerable time after the shot.. .. If salvaged. By the mid-1970s. the this land is heavtly contaminated and Defense Nuclear Agency had must be fenced in for a considerable established its own testing ground for time after the test. then certain legal nuclear simulations south of the problems Will arise because some of Trinity Site area. th1s land is homestead entry land. Although severely restricted before, during. and after the nuclear blast. visitation to Ground Zero is increasing. Systematic scientific study of Ground Zero occurred immediately following the nuclear blast and continued through the 1950s. The military. Manhattan Project personnel. and academicians all conducted on-site investigations (Szasz 1984). Additional inves­ tigations. particularly health studies. have taken place since. Preservation and interpretation have been the objectives of National Park Service visitations to Ground Zero. Beginning a short time after the blast, the general public has been allowed to visit Ground Zero in increasing numbers. An interpretive sign. first erected by the Anny in the 1950s. addresses public education about the site. A new chain-link fence erected in the 1950s replaced the original 1945 barbwire and wooden post fencing surrounding Ground Zero. Radiation levels in the fenced area at Ground Zero are low. On an average. the levels are only 10 times greater than the region's natural background radiation. A one-hour visit to the inner fenced area will result in a whole body exposure of .5 to 1 milliroentgen, roughly equivalent to a 3-hr jet flight. Current standards are 100 milliroentgen per year for members of the general public. The green. glassy trinitite is still radioactive and must not be picked up. Today, tours open to the public are conducted in April and October. Points of interest include the George McDonald Ranch. Ground Zero and the shelter protecting an area st111 paved with trinitite. the remains of Jumbo. West 800 , and communications-line poles.

44 GEORGE MCDONALD RANCH

The George McDonald Ranch (LA then reportedly established a ranch 100,001), located on the slopes of the near the Oscura Mountains on land Oscura Mountains. is a historic that was partly purchased and partly ranch dating to the late nineteenth or homesteaded. She credits Schmidt early twentieth century. The former with having built the existing ranch sheep and cattle ranch is listed on house in late 1912 and early 1913. the National Register of Historic "The original homestead and house Places for its role as a field laboratory was 1 mi down range." wrote Hall ...It used to assemble the core of the first was burned when my grandmother atomic bomb, detonated nearby on was in town for the arrival of her July 16. 1945. second baby .... The house at Trinity Site was then built." The family lived Ra.nch History in a barn at the original homesite while the current house was being Local historian C. L. Sonnichsen built. (1965: 119-120) states that the fugitive The Schmidt family apparently Texas outlaw Henry (Baldy} Russell lived in the new house only a few developed a well 1 mi west of Lava years (Rieder 1992). It was sold to a Gap and later another well. farther rancher named Snyder when north, to water his livestock. The first Schmidt's health began to fail (Hall of these was purchased by Thomas 1986). In a 1991 interview, Howard McDonald; the second was part of the McDonald reported that George property Russell sold to two Germans. McDonald had bought the ranch from near Engle. New Mexico. Fred from Snyder (Rieder 1992}. and Frank Smith. in 1895. The McDonald family had ranched There is some evidence that in the area for some time. Dave German immigrant Franz Schmidt McDonald ( 1984) states that his may be the Frank Smith that grandfather, Michael, immigrated Sonnichsen referred to . from Cork County. Ireland; fought in Granddaughter Rosemary Hall. in a the Confederate army: and moved to letter to the WSMR Public Affairs Texas. Michael's son. Thomas, was Office in 1986. notes that Schmidt born in Texas in 1870. and at the age immigrated to this country at the age of 4 or 5, helped the family move to of 17. The Socorro County Census for the Sacramento Mountains of New 1900 lists a Frank Schmidt and a Mexico. Upon his marriage. Thomas Fred Schmidt as county residents took his bride to Arizona briefly. With the occupation of stock-raiser. returning to New Mexico in the late Frank Schmidt's birth year is listed as 1880s. Michael McDonald had decided 1863. and his date of immigration as to go into farming near Tularosa, so 1882. two years later than Hall Thomas bought Michael's cattle and estimates. Henry Russell is listed as a moved to the Mockingbird Ranch in Socorro County resident at the same the Jomada del Muerto. time. Thomas McDonald set about In her letter. Rosemary notes that acquiring wells and springs and Franz Schmidt m a rried her bought eight other ranches near the grandmother, Esther Holmes, of Mockingbird Ranch. Dave McDonald Pearsall, Texas, in 1906. The couple ( 1984) refers to this ranch as the

45 /// ____' , ' \ \1\ /. ' \ , --p.\ ---- A -~,\ \ A House ,~ / ,. -- ....- ~ ~ ,, -\ / ;' \ \ . B Bunkhouse ( - ---- /-- - ~j:-:t:; //\ -. -· -,... -- 7 ~ ~~\ \. c Barn I Shop 0 Shed :;..~ _.-- ; . / \ '\\ \ E Root Cellar 1\ \ \ \ '\ ~r-;_...-' V \ I F Well ./ / ' / '\ \ "· I "«. I ~ \ \ " G Windmill ~ -.. _ I i , , - ---~- -/~_ ' ~ I ~ ',, H Stone Tank ------...__ .. ,'\ ' I - ...... - ~~ ·. I ,. -" ...\ .... . I'\. \ Corral Complex ...... \.._- ...... _ . ------..... :. ; / ~ \ ' I "" \'""- -- ._ ._------, , ...." ..... ', '1··· .. / / ~· ,' I J Chicken Pen 'I l l ------., ----=-----, 'fi~ '\\ \ \ / _. _. " I I I K Cistern I \, co E<; J H/· 0F 111' ., ~~0 J-~ ;J G ','-.....!.~------1 1 L Building Stones tl I ., ._. / ~1 ·I J. __. ·- ''I I .::) Artifact Concentration ~ A ' I I II " - -- BOj0.. / llll II ~ :... l· . ' 1'I I l '·· -· --- .. --- ~-{(...... u:::r-= - ~ - R- _.. ____ _-~·~ , : \ ' fL ,, J \ C l 1! 1 \ I ~ -- ' I\\ :-::: :"·.. - ~ .A ... \ --- - ~·--6<-"""""''l' '\ I \ t... · [- - 'I I I George '-... " . I - :I : McDonald Ranch ...... " ) 1 t 1: 1 i ""' "'-. rI I'I 1I

1 ~~c... f·..;.td) "-- ;~ I II I n t<<>

Site LA 100,001 (HSR 9241-02), George McDonald. Ranch plan. borne ranch. George McDonald. result of the blast 2 mi away and Dave's brother. was another of reported that the porch· roof had Thomas' eight children. When George collapsed. and its deck was rotting. acquired the property that is now The main portion of the bouse known as the George McDonald measured 36 by 32 ft. Its long side Ranch is uncertain. However. he filed faced east. The interior of this portion a homestead patent for 320 acres in was divided into four rooms-one 1942. room was a kitchen and one served as Starting in 1942. the Army a parlor or dining room (HAER n .d.). acquired much of the 3,200-s q-mi Hall notes that the kitchen was pale area now known as White Sands gray and had a Magic Chef woodstove Missile Range for a bombing range. for cooking. Kitchen lighting was two Six McDonald ranchers were kerosene lamps with reflectors. The displaced: Tom. his sons George. southeast room. the living room. was Dave, Rube. and Ross. and his pink or peach colored. The master daughter Emma (Mrs. Cicero) Green. bedroom. the northeast room, was The George McDonald Ranch was pale green. This room was later usd to acquired by the U.S. Anny in 1944, assemble the bomb core. The according to the Historic American northwest room. which was blue. Building Record (HAER) . The ranch belonged to Hall's mother, Frances. probably was used by military police The younger children slept wtth their who occupied the area that year. They parents (Hall 1986). reportedly used horses. and a Ceilings were cream-colored. This photograph indicates that they may lighter paint also extended 18 in. have been stabled at the ranch down the wall from the ceiling. and in (Historic American Engineering the southeast roon1, the lighter paint Record [HAER] n.d.}. was separated from the rest of the On July 12, 1945, scientists wall With a stenciled design. The assembled the bomb's plutonium core stencil scrollwork reportedly was here, in the presence of Robert executed by Mike Walsh of Chicago. Oppenhejmer. It was then driven to who drove and maintained the the base of the tower at Ground Zero Schmidts' car. a Dodge, which was and inserted into its housing (HAER among the first in the area (Hall n.d.). 1986). Additions were built onto the The House and Related Structures house on the north and west. The north addition. 15 by 21 ft. consisted The house. which faces east. was of two rooms. It was built of stone adobe bricks that were reported by with adobe mortar. The interior was Hall to have been made on the site. plastered; the exterior was not. On The extertor walls had a .. pebble-dash" the west, an 11-by-16-ft addition flnish, whlle the interior walls were served as an ice house. It was smooth plaster. The house had wood plastered with adobe mud inside and floors, a tin roof that was bolted to out. Inside were two closet-sized the walls because of high winds. and rooms over a basement where the ice semicircular concrete steps at the was stored (HAER n.d.j front. HAER documented a wooden "The ice house area was joined to porch 7 ft deep and 20 ft long with the house by an open breezeway, railings and balusters on the front of roofed but no doors on either end," the house. In 1983, HAER (n.d.) wrote Hall. !he steps [like those at noted damage that occurred as the the front of the house] were half

47 l

Delivery of the active material to the George McDonald House (WSMR photograph file). I

. .

George McDonald House after NPS reconstruction (HSR photograph file).

48 ctrcle. also." the front of the house was a concrete The house had 13 windows: 8 on water tank 65ft long. 20ft wide, and the main portion of the house and 5 6 ft deep. The tank was divided into on the northern addition. two of two compartments. Water was which formed a double window on the supplied to the tank by a windmill I east side (HAER n.d.). Two doors. one just east of it (HAER n.d.). The from the southeast and one from the mechanisim for the windmill is lying northeast room. led onto the porch on the ground: a gas-powered engine on the east side of the house. The apparently replaced it. northern addition also had two doors. At the time the ranch was being A back door opening from the kitchen used as a field laboratory for the on the west proVided access to the ice bomb test at Trinity. the water tank house. provided a much-needed diversion The house is believed to have been from the long hours. the tension. and heated by butane. probably from a the heat. The scientists and tank buried somewhere near the technicians sometimes used the tank house (HAER n.d.). Although there across from the house to cool off. are no fireplaces in the house. there "I remember a fairly large concrete are flue openings and two chimneys. tank at the McDonald Ranch house," Water was supplied by runoff from the said Benjamin Diven. a Trinity Site roof. which passed through a charcoal technician. "I don't remember filter before it was collected in a swimming-you couldn 't exactly cistern that measures 9 ft deep and 7 swim, it was too small for that. But ft in diameter located just west of the in the 1 10-degree weather. it was nice house (Hall 1986; HAER n.cL). to jump in the water and splash When the house was used for the around" (Diven interview by Beth Manhattan Project. workbenches. Morgan, 1993). electric lights and outlets. and a South of the reservoir was an L­ telephone were installed in the shaped bunkhouse built of rubble northeast room. Also in this room, rock held together with adobe mortar. windows were covered to make them It had four rooms. one of which had a dust-tight. A sign was painted on the fireplace. and a 12-ft-deep cistern just door, "Please use other doors-keep south of it. room clean." Shortly before the bomb "The bunkhouse was a small test, a wooden ramp and platfo.nn tool/tack room. a room for my were built over the porch (HAER n .d.). grandmother's brother. Frank The house was surrounded by a Holmes, and Mr. John Finago. The low stone wall. about 4 ft high and l room on the back of it was a ft thick. It was made of rubble held in storeroom for groceries and other place with adobe mortar (HAER n.d.). supplies," Hall (1994) wrote. The stone work on the wall and There was a large barn south of elsewhere was done by a Norwegian the bunkhouse. with two rooms on stone mason. John Finago, who the west and a latrge central interior reportedly did similar wo" on a room. The bam measured 41 by 71 ft. house at Hansonburg Hills. also a Railroad rails supported the ceiling part of the ranch (Hall 1986). beams and formed door lintels. The ranch had a number of Joining it on the east were the appurtenances and outbuildings. corrals. holding .p~ns and watering Outside the wall surroun(Qng the troughs (HAER n . ,S.~. Also in this area house. at the northwest comer. was a were a number of corrugated metal concrete-lined root cellar. Across from sheds for storage and housing poultry

49 and hogs. Restoration and Stabilization Efforts Some damage occurred at the ranch at the time of the bomb test at Trinity. Most or all of the glass windows were broken. the barn and house roofs were damaged. and chimneys may have collapsed at that time (HAER n.d.). After the test. the house apparently sat empty for many years. In 1984 the National Park Service restored the house to its appearance just before the bomb test (Rieder and Lawson 1994). Walls of outbuildings were also stabilized at that time. The house has not recieved any routine maintenance; it continues to be impacted by explosives tests in the area and an increasing volume of visitors. Outbuildings are deteriorating (Rieder and Lawson 1994}.

50 MCDONALD BROTHERS RANCH

The McDonald Brothers Ranch/ date it. The plate fragment reveals a Trinity Base Camp (LA 82956) is a portion of a calendar for the month of historic cattle ranch probably April. with the 3rd day of the month predating to 1910 (Rieder and Lawson falling on a Sunday. This dates the 1994). It Ues at the end of the gradual plate to either 1904 or 1932. Historic slope running west-northwest from records do not reveal the identity of the Mockingbird Mountains into the the original rancher (Rieder and basin, about 9 mi southwest of Lawson 1994). Ground Zero (HAER n.d.). During preparations for the test of the first atomic bomb, it senred as base camp for scientists and military personnel. In addition to these uses, an artifact scatter found at the ranch suggests that U was first used by Mogollon or Anasazi peoples during prehistoric times. Ranch KtStory

Little is known of the prehistoric occupation of the ranch area. If structural remains or other features were present, they have been obscured by ranch and base-camp disturbances (Rieder and Lawson 1994). The Calendar plate fragment evidence includes a low-density Tom McDonald purchased the chipped-stone scatter that covers the ranch from Vivian Eanes (Ria Lee western portion of the ranch/ base Sidwell interview. by Beth Morgan, camp site. Several concentrations of 1995). The earltest mention of the artifacts are present. In addition to property in Socorro County tax flakes of chert, chalcedony. and records, a tax payment by Dave and quartzite that are the byproducts of Rube McDonald to Dave's sister-in­ stone- tool manufac ture. four law Vivian Eanes for .. improvements projectile points. three cores. a made on government land... is scraper, and a metate fragment were recorded for 1925. Eanes was granted found. One of the projectile points a stock-raising homestead patent in dates to the Late Archaic period (1800 1927 (Rieder and Lawson 1994). B.C. to A.D. 200): two others may According to county records, that date to the Early Ptthouse period same year, Eanes sold the ranch to (A.D . 200 to 750). The fourth is Dave and his brother for $100. Dave thought to date to between A.D. 1000 McDonald (1984) states the house and 1700. was bought in November 1924. Architectural evidence suggests Rube. Dave and his wife Mertis. that the adobe ranch house was built and brother Ross McDonald Uved in about 1910. A piece of histoii.c white the adobe ranch house year-round. Ware collected from the ranch helps After their marriage 1n 1935. Rube's

51 II

Base camp with historic ranch buildings (WSMR photograph file).

52 wife, Ria Lee joined them. Rube later had a pitched roof; the wings bad sold his share in the ranch to Dave shed roofs. All roofs were corrugated and Ross. ln 1938. upon his maniage, metal. There was at least one interior Ross built a frame house at the fireplace (HAER n.d.). ranch. where his son Howard was The frame house, about 100ft west bom. Until 1942. the brothers ran up of the first house. was a simple to 500 head of cattle on their 640 rectangular wood-frame structure. acres of patented land and additional measuring about 25 by 40ft. It had a leased land. At that time. the 20-ft-wide addition running the full government established the length of the north side. Exterior Alamogordo Bombing Range and the walls were finished with tongue-and­ ranchers were evacuated (Rieder and groove siding. The roof was corrugated Lawson 1994). metal. The house probably was heated Two years later. the ranch was with a wood-burning stove (HAER selected as base camp for the Trinity n.d.). Photographs of the base camp test, and in 1945, some 350 staff show that the wooden house was members were stationed there. using covered With a light-colored paint. existing ranch facilities. newly Both buildings apparently had constructed buildings. and Army four-over-four wood sash windows, hutments with wooden floors. Once except the northern addition to the the test was completed in July 1945. second house. which historic the base camp was dismantled and photographs indicate had three vacated. FoJlowtng the conclusion of windows with six panes each (HAER the war. the McDonalds were allowed n.d.). to return to their ranch under a The frame house apparently was cooperattve-u se arrangement. used as a laboratory in March 1945 However. this did not last. The and had a photographic trailer backed ranch ers were again evacuated in the up to its south side. Later, a hutment early 1950s. After lengthy litigation. was attached to its north sid e. the government formally acquired the Electricity and running water were ranch in the late 1980s (Rieder and provided to it for processing Lawson 1994). photographs (HAER n.d.). Since 1945 the roof has collapsed and most of Houses and Other Structures the windows are missing. There were several outbuildings When the government took near the houses. To the north were possession of the ranch in 1944. two two adobe structures, between the ranch houses. several outbuildings. houses and the earthen reservoir. an earthen reservoir. two or m ore One. about 20ft sq. may have been a Windmills. and a water tank were bam or garage. The remaining walls present (HAER n.d.). are no more than a few adobes high. The H-shaped adobe house. the A second building, . out 15 by 25ft. easternmost of the two houses, had may have housed a gas motor to three main sections. The central operate the water 1 umps or a DC section measured 20 by 30 ft. The generator and batt~ . The walls for northern wing was about 35 by 20ft. this building h ave coUtlsed. but the and the southern wing was abou t 50 roof is mostly intact. Inside ts a by 25 ft. There were porches on the cistern or well. Historic photographs west side of the central portion. and indicate that a pump Jack m ay h ave on the north side of the south wing. been situated between the windmill The central portion of the building and this building. A wood shed was

53 A -HoUM G Wef 0 can

TN 8 Frame ~tout• H Wlndmil ~:) AMw:l Concenua1oon c S.n w• .,r- & ~· Cor• Pump EllllhenT&nlls 0 c: Building lloo«ms E Shed K Found.ltiono al e Metat• llaMC~~m~>lk.llldtng• F Corral Complu Q GIONft OQmenl e Ht&IOric SMrd • PIOjealle Potnl Ill Oth• r Metal Ani..:~ •

\ ) ------, ------.--'t\, ------7/- 1 I I I I I ., f/ I t /I ~11 I 1/ It' I 1/ , // ~/ ;/ If \\ ~( // \' / ...... !J \. ---- I '

LA82956 c..ar-...... , . ,_ ... __ HSR-9241-3

McDonald Brothers Ranch and Base Camp plan

54 about 40 ft west of the frame house. buildings, 10 Civilian Conservation All of these buildings had corrugated Corps portable buildings. including metal roofs (HAER n.d.). four 20-by-100 ft units, a 20-by-60-ft Another building. referred to as a unit. a mess hall and kitchen, three garage. was situated between the two 20-by-50 ft buildings, and a 150-man ranch houses (HAER n .d.). For latrine were brought in. These were purposes of the Trinity Test. a erected south of the ranch houses concrete floor was poured in it. and it (HAER n .d.) . Later. an additional 20- was used to house a 50-kW generator by-1 00-ft unit was brought in and the plant. This building appears to have latrine was expanded. Today there are been of wood-frame construction. two concrete foundations with wtth tarpaper roof and wall coverings plumbing for sinks. toilets. and and two additions. Another building. showers. The portable buildings were referred to in Trinity Site memoranda used as barracks. and for supply. as Msouthwestem ranch building" or shop. and office functions. Around "ranch building number 3." may have May. 1945. a swamp cooler was added been one of the adobe buildings at the Mess Hall. Besides the portable already described or a bam south of buildings. approximately 20 Army the ranch houses. It was also used as hutments. each about 16 ft sq. were a laboratory. set up at the base in the spring of Richard J . Watts. who built 1945. health-monitoring equipment for the One of the buildings was used as a Trtnity Test. noted in a 1993 interview warehouse. which 1'rlnity informants that he had some equipment in one of fondly called "Fubar" (fouled up the adobe buildings. which he beyond all recognition). It housed all identified from a p h otograph as the kinds of electrical supplies, plumbing one nearest the pump jack (Richard J . supplies, and hardware (Diven Watts interview by Beth Morgan. interview, 1993). 1993). HAER (n.d.) documents state that Which building was actually the in 1983. little was left of the laboratory is unclear. However. McDonald Brothers ranch or base several improvents were made during camp. The adobe ranch house was the 1945: work tables. shelving. and most intact structure at that time. electricity were added. The frame house was deteriorating. Three large exhaust vents remain The small wood shed west of the on the ground. It is vague from the houses was still' standing. All historic photographs which building windows and doors were gone. The they came from. concrete foundat1Qps of at least two On the north side of the ranch of the portable budi1ings remained. complex was a series of earthen Considering that there were up to tanks. The banks of these were about 350 Army staff and scientists assigned 10 ft above grade level. A windmill to the base camp for more than 6 stood to the south of these tanks. The months. very few artifacts were found. pump jack mentioned above was One trash dump includes some roughly south of the Windmill and military trash; lumber scraps, nails. was attached lo machinery inside the and broken glass in the area of the closest of the adobe buildings. lt temporary structures that may date to appears that a water tank on a tower this usage of the site. was installed during April 1945 (HAER n.d.). In addition to the existing

55 Reconstruction and Stabilization Efforts Beginning in November 1994. WSMR. with HSR's services, undertook stabilizat ion efforts focused solely on the adobe ranch house. Portions of the north and south walls of the house were replaced with adobe bricks made on the s ite. and three windows were reconstructed. During cleanup of the wall trash. a brick was found with a date. However. the end of the brick with the last two digits of the year had been cut off. Several areas were in critical need of plaster. The roof was covered with new tin. all openings covered with plywood. and ., the exterior grade around the house was corrected to allow water to run off.

56 r

HISTORIC RANCHING

A number of additional ranches Beyond this earthen tank is a were once occupied within the complex of corrals that occupies the boundaries of the Trinity Site northern portion of the site (Feature National Historic Landmark. Six of F). A steel tank for livestock watering these were recently documented. is also located within a fenced Ranching-related sites have features pasture east of the corral complex such as houses and outbuildings, and north of the earthen tank earthen tanks for stock watering and (Feature H) . corral complexes. and trash dumps. Historic artifacts occur in greater frequencies in the vicinity of the Story Ranch ranch buildings. This assemblage has a high proportion of glass fragments. Story Ranch (LA 103, 779} dates the most common being purple, from the New Mexico Statehood/ amber. and clear with some aqua and World War II period (1912-1945). The dark green. Purple glass is a temporal site lies on the lower part of the indicator. Aftq: 1880, manganese was gradual slope running west from the added to m

57 ----....--....__ TN / / I ...... I "-'(__ ,' ...... , I ', I I _., I -~ . . ~... ~ ,- " A \\..~~ .· ..... I \\,..:dr I \ I___ \_ .. J ': ·...... , .. ··· ,.-·····: \ t· ...... · • ~ KEY \ A House :.~ •coll1 B Cistern \ Oe C Windmill/ Well \ 0 Earthen Tank \ /"'; E Steel Tank ( t F Corral Complex \ ~...... l .... ··:: Artifact Concentration\ ...... - . \ " LA 102,255 " ...... Contour Interval 2 ft HSR-9241-8 Story Well ------MR 05124194.

Site LA 102.255 {HSR 9241-08), Story Well plan. facilities were used simply as a service system with diverting berms (Feature node for ranching operations F) collects water running into the headquartered at the Story Ranch. playa. This pattern was common throughout Historic artifacts are s cattered the area. Historic records indicate across the site. These consist that Charles Story was established in primarily of purple, aqua, and clear the area by 191 0; tax records indicate glass container fragments. white ware 1915 as the likely date for t he and earthenware ceramics. and construction of this adobe house at solder- a nd sanitary-seal cans. Story Well. Several motor vehicle parts were The house has collapsed. but the observed intermixed with debris of the corral complex is largely extant. outbuilding. possibly indicating the although deteriorating. While the vehicle was abandoned in a shed, wooden tower of the windmill is which later collapsed around it. The standing. the mill itself has collapsed. range of h istoric artifacts, in The Army has since drilled a well conjunction with h ewn juniper lintels south of the earthen tank in the and some cut nails in the older southwestern portion of the site. portion of the house, suggest that the site could date originally to the 1890s Foster Ranch or the late Terrttorial period . The roofs and several walls of the Foster Ranch (LA 103,781) is a house have collapsed, and the historic ranch dating to between 1912 outbuilding is entirely in ruins. Much and 1940. The site is located in the of the corral is standing but Trinity Basin; portions of the site are deteriorated, and the windmill has Within playas. collapsed. The historic ranch consists of a Prehistoric peoples also found this house, an outbuilding, several to be a good area. Artifacts structures, and scattered historic representing this earlier use include artifacts with one trash concentration flakes, sherds, and three bifaces. associated with a livestock economy. Chipped-stone materials include The ranch house is built of adobe chert, quartzite. petrified wood. and brick with lime and mud plaster. It obsidian. 1\vo of the sherds are A~a probably consisted of an original Fria Glaze-on-red dating from •· two-room section. with two rooms 1275 lo 1350. No prehistoric features added later to result in an L-shaped were observed. plan. A windmill is located just beyond the northeast corner of the Foster Well fencing that marks a rectangular yard around the house (Feature E). Foster Well (LA 103. 782) is a Southwest of the ranch house are the historic ranching site dating to the remains of a frame and stone early twentieth century. The site is outbuilding, possibly a barn or shop located on the lower part of the slope (Feature B) . Cisterns immediately running west-southwest from the west to northwest of both the ranch base of the Mockingbird and Little house and outbuilding collected water Burro Mountains into the Trinity £Feature G). Beyond the outbuilding Basin. are a corral and a well ;,{griginally The site consi.sts o f several hand dug) With a collapsel windmill structures and a historic artifact and small earthen tank (Features C, scatter affiliated with a livestock D, and F). An extensive earthen tank economy. A drilled well. with wooden

61 TN

A House 8 Barn I Shop c Corral D Windmill / Well E Windmill f Earthen Tank G Cistern Artifact Concentration I Biface ' Sherd I / / I / I ..,.,...,./ D ~ ~ ------~ I ___!../:.___------I I I I I I I I I / \ // \ ""------­------

0 150ft HSR-9241-9 0 60m Contour Interval 2tt LA 103,781 Foster Ranch MR 1212Al3 JPH

Site LA 103,781 (HSR 9241-09}, Foster Ranch plan. 62 ~ TN ~ ~~ · ~ fb\~~'(;)(\;. ~__..- ...... _../ '/P.,p'•/ ..--- / ------...... // I _,/ ", I '...... _ < KEY I A Windmil / Wei B Earthen Tank " C Stone Revetment I \ D Corral Complex " E Steel Tank I \ F Grave Plot ~ I \ I I \ I \ I I ", I '~ "/ ~~~ ----...... _ _., LA 103,782 ...... _~- 20 40r 60n ~~--- HSR-9241-1 0 Foster Well 0512>4194JH

Site LA 103,78.2 (HSR 9241-10), Foster WeUplan. E 2

j f

Site LA 103.780 (HSR 9241-11), Greens Babar WeU plan.

64 tower and windmill (Feature A). is hardware. h orseshoes, and metal located in the northeast portion of fragments. The range of artifacts ~ the s ite, adjacent to an earthen tank historic records suggest a post-1. (Feature B) . This stock tank is date ~f use for this ranching site. surrounded by an earthen berm with W1th the exception of the loading a stone revetment in the northeast chute. which appears to have been portion (Feature C). Fencing demolished, the site's features are separates these structures from two deteriorating but are largely extant. corrals (Feature D). one of which formerly included a loading chute. Greens Baber Well West of the stock tank is a fenced plot with a headstone marking the Greens Baber Well (LA 103, 780) is grave of Helen Foster (Feature F). 1\vo a historic ranching site dating from steel stock tanks are located within lhe end of the nineteenth century to the corral areas (Feature E}. World War 11. The site is located in the Trinity Basin; portions of the site are Within playas. The historic ranching remains consist of a house, several structur~ and a historic artifact scatter wi two concentrations, all associate with a livestock economy. The ranch house is located tn the southwest portion of the s ite (Feature A). Constructed of adobe, the h ouse appears to have had three rooms at one time. A corral complex is located in the northeast portion of the site (Feature B). Associated structures nearby consist of a well, a demolished windmill, and an earthen stock tank (Features C. D. and E). Finally, three cisterns a r e located at varying distances from the ranch h ouse (Feature F) . Historic artifacts are scattered throughout the site but are most densely conceiit rated around the house and in a smaller area southeast of the house. The assemblage includes purple and aqua glass container fragments. refined white ware and earthenware sherds. and metal buttons. Tombstone for Helen Foster at Foster The range of his toric artifacts WeU (HSR photographftle). indicates an initial occupation of the site for ranching operations in the The historic artifact assemblage 1890s; a date further corroborated by consists of a low-density scatter of hand-hewn lintels and c ut nails &urple and clear glass container observed in the remains of the house. agments. along with miscellaneous Historic evidence suggests that the

65 TN A Earthen Tank • Projectile Point 8 Stone 4h Biface c Corral • Obsidian Nodule 0 C-Ration Can 0 Insulators

/ ~ ------

0 Contour Interval 1ft I 30cm

LA 104,998 HSA-9241-12 GREEN TANK MR 0¥.!7194 JPH

Site LA 104,998 (HSR 9241-12), Green Tank plan. 66 r

ranch complex could have been is located on the gently rolling plain established by William or George that extends north of the Trinity Baber (or Babers), brothers who were Basin toward Chupadera Mesa. in the area by the turn of the century. The historic ranching component The property, a 160-acre homestead consists of a large earthen tank and entry, was patented in 1913 and was related structures associated with a acquired by J. F. Green in 1915. The livestock economy. The tank is headquarters for his and his son located northeast of the Trinity North Cicero's ranch was about 6 n'li to the Road (Feature A). The tank is northwest. Cicero was married to distinguished by its geometrical Emma McDonald, a sister to the regularity. forming a circle 230 ft in McDonald brothers. After this, the diameter at the top of the berm. site was used for ranching operations. Berms on the north and east divert and the house was no longer drainages. which are then channeled occupied. through well-laid stone revetments The adobe house has mostly (Feature B) into the tank. The tank is collapsed, as have the corrals. The enclosed by a quadrilateral fence, at former wooden windmill tower and the southeast corner of which is mill are now wreckage. having been appended a small corral (Feature C). replaced by a steel tower and newer No artifacts dating to the historic miJl to serve as a wildlife water ranching period were observed. The source. The wildlife water unit is tank is known historically to have accessed by a dirt road. been built around 1918 and definitely Located within the same area is a before 1927, as it appears on the low-density artifact scatter of chipped General Land Office s urvey plat. stone and ceramics. The artifacts The historic military component include flakes. two bifaces. and consists of the remains of several fragments of ground stone. communication and instrumentation Chipped-stone materials include lines erected by the Army to connect chert, quartzite, and siltstone. Six Ground Zero with North 10.000. brown ware sherds were recorded both Erected between 1944 and 1945, these within the concentration and lines pass through the site, throughout the scatter. One sherd is paralleling the associated Trinity an El Paso Brown ware body sherd North Road. Trinity-related artifacts dating from A.D. 900 to 1350. On the observed within the site boundaries basis of the ceramic evtdence, the consist of several ceramic insulators prehistoric assemblage represents a and a C-ration can associated with probable unspecified Jornada activities re Ia ted to tb e Mogollon occupation dating from A.D. communication and instrumentation 900 to 1350. No features associated lines. with the prehistoric component were The tank, except for silting and a observed. thick stand of tamarisk around the water channel. is intact; the fences Green Tank and corral are deteriorated but standing. However, the Trinity Green Tank (LA 104.998) is an communication line through this earthen tank dating to the beginning section is entirely down. of the twentieth century. and the Evidence of earlier peoples was remains of a historic military also found. The prehistoric artifacts installation associated with the consist of flakes, three cores, two Trinity Project of 1944-1945. The site bifaces, and a tested obsidian nodule.

67 A projectile point is possibly Late These ranching families were isola led, Archaic. The base of this projectile for their only physical link was a point has been reworked; it could rudimentary network of bad roads have been picked up by a later hunter over long distances. However, as and modified. The temporally neighbors, they shared another diagnostic projectile point suggests a network, less obvious but no less Late Archaic occupation. possibly tangible. of cooperation and mutual dating from 1800 B.C. to A.D. 200. No assistance. prehistoric features were observed. Exemplifying this new livestock economic pattern Within the northern Summary Jornada were such men as J. F. Green; Charles Story: Franz Schmidt: In terms of land use. the historic Thomas McDonald and his sons ranching sites in the project area George, Dave, Rube. and Ross; George illustrate a shift that occurred in the Eanes: and Mr. Foster. Through time, first years of this century. Starting in these men and their families lent the 1870s, cattle herds were trailed their names to such enduring through Lava and Mockingbird Gaps landmarks as Greens Baber Well, and across this portion of the Story Ranch, Foster Ranch, and the Jornada del Muerto, passing McDonald ranches. westward. Then, With the arrival of the Atchison. Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad in 1880. Engle, New Mexico. became a cattle shipping point. A handful of relatively large outfits dominated the cattle industry here at this time. In the 1880s and 1890s, one of these outfits, the Bar Cross. had their headquarters in Engle and Aleman, but the northern e.xi.ent of their range included the project area (Hutchinson 1956; Rhodes 1968). At the turn of the century. this part of the northern Jornada del Muerto was still mostly open range, practicable for large outfits, but the pattern was changing. A few families had already started ranching here on a smaller scale. This change from large-scale to small-scale livestock operations accelerated during the next decade and a half. as seen in the 19 10 census and in the Socorro tax records for 1910-1915. By 1915. the pattern of relatively small, self-sustaining family ranches that existed here in 1941 had been established. Further to the north. a system of large holdings prevailed, as exemplified by H. 0 . Bursum's extensive sheep and cattle operations.

68 PREHISTORIC USE OF THE TRINI1Y SITE

For most people, Trinity Site is present a puzzle. Do the higher associated exclusively with the densitJes represent repeated use by beginning of the nuclear age. the same or a different group However, over 8,000 years of human (potentially thousands of years apart} activity have left evidence in the or high-intensity use representing a archaeological record. Prior to the longer stay within one season or over military takeover of the area in the a few years. 1940s, this activity was based upon Low-density artifact scatters, adaptations to and exploitation of a which are assumed to represent very challenging natural environment. low intensity of use. are difficult to Similarly. historic and Trinity-related date without lhe datable or stylistical use of the Trinity Basin were adapted distinctive artifacts-painted ceramics to available water. vegetation. terrain, or projectile point styles. and factors such as isolation. Two archaeological sites contain Without written documentation. remains that were identified as the interpretation of prehistoric Paleoindian. Some Paleoindian lithic peoples requires more sites viewed tools are very distinctive shapes and from a larger area. Prehistoric use of easy to recognize. while the materials the Trinity area has been identi£i,ed used by the Paleoindian hunters were through more than 20 archaeological of better quality than selected by later survey projects, but these have flintknappers and are sometimes heat covered less than one-quarter of the treated so that they are easier to 50,000 acres. Such surveys are work. Within the Trinity Area, only required when there is a potential two individual artifacts have been that planned military use will affect attributed to the Paleoindian. This the prehistoric or historic property. could represent the tools of a very Almost 50 prehistoric sites have dispersed population. which required been documented in the area. These game that browsed a large area. On prehistoric artifact scatters. some the other hand, the climate has with hearths, provide a pattern of use changed significantly since the for the Trinity area and the northern Paleoindian hunters used the area. Jornada del Muerto. Paleoindian sites may not be evident In the absence of architecture, because of erosion and redeposition of archaeologists can only surmise that deposits. prehistoric use of the basin floors Pleistocene Lake Trinity within the Basin and Range Province undoubtedly dates from the same was restricted to ephemeral camps. time period. However, extensive The artifacts and hearths represent survey by HSR archaeologists on the repeated, dispersed use of an area, south end of the lake only yielded with no one episode of use limited Paleoindian remains, representing more than a short stay. including portions of a lithic tool As expected With such a scenario, the assemblage. majority of the archaeological The later Archaic sites are dated by remains are scattered and of low distinctive styles of dart points, stone density. btfaces or oval-shaped tools worked The few sites that are found with along all edges, and chipping debris. high densities of surface artifacts Ground stone indicates processing of

69 plant remains. Extensive Archaic base-camp sites. which n1ay contain materials have been identified within hearths, heavier ground-stone Trinity Site. artifacts thal were not moved but left Mogollon sites contain similar from year to year. etc. types of artifacts. except the artifact Of the previously recorded sites. styles are different, indicating to the about one-fifth are Mogollon sites. archaeologist different functions. The These are identified by ceramics points were fitted to arrows and are dating from A.D. 200- 1400. Only one thus smaller. The ground stone such site contained evidence of a represents other styles. adapted from hearth. The Archaic represents processing corn. Hearths are approximately 5000 years of common. However. the most prehistory. while the Mogollon diagnostic artifacts are the ceramics. represents only 1200 years, which These can be identified-based on clay may account for the lower density of types, vessel forms, styles, and paint sites. But the fact that only one of colors, if there are any-and assigned the sites has a hearth suggests an to a date range. Some ceramics. such even more ephemeral pattern of use. A as brown wares. were probably made few sites have been excavated locally. and the abundance indicates immediately outside the Trinity Site that they were used as utility that contain evidence of more wares-for cooking. storing water. etc. permanent Mogollon occupation. The painted wares are later in the 1\vo categories of sites are more sequence and may be made locally or difficult lo characterize. based on imported. surface remains. More than one third Hearths provide the key for dating of the sites contain remains that some of these sites. Hearths and cannot currently be dated. Often they stains may contain the remains of are a few scattered artifacts with no burned plant or animal materials datable materials or hearths. containing low densities of natural. More challenging is the situation radioactive carbon. By measuring the of sites that clearly contain evidence deterioration of the radioactive of more than one time period. When a carbon against nonnal carbon. it is site has an Archaic projectile point possible to calculate an age for the and a scatter of flakes overlain by the burned material. To date materials remains of a ranching complex from these sites. however. it might be consisting of corrals and an earthen important to determine whether the tank. the division of materials is sample was contaminated by the fairly clear. If a site has. on lhe Trinity test. surface, an Archaic projectile point. Of almost 50 sites already ceramics of two or three types , and a documented in the Trinity area, scatter of flakes. the diVision may be almost 20 are Archaic sites (identified more difficult. The remains do by projecWe point styles). but only indicate. however, that attractive about one-quarter contain evidence of resources were available in the area, hearths. These sites may represent even though each group may have r esource -collection sHes-lithic been attracted by different resources resources for making stone tools. at different times of the year. plants for food. etc. They may have A few unique sites have been been used so tern porarily t.hat no r ecorded. Two stone circles were evidence of overnight s tays. such as recorded by archaeologists working for camp fires. were left. Possibly nearby. the WSMR. Similar features represent but i.n a more hos pitable area. are tepee rings elsewhere in Apache

70 country. To test whether they may have been made by the Apache, several test pits were excavated at the site; no subsurface materials were found, prehistoric or historic. A small rock shelter was recorded: the remains did not contain much direct informatio n on the inhabitants. although a projectile point. a few flakes. and small pieces of charcoal were found. More important, the site also included a pack rat midden , which provided information on the past enVironment of the Trinity Basin. By studying past climates, we can better understand prehistoric inhabitants. th eir activities, and their relation to the environment. Such studies have the potential to help us study our modem relationship With and impact on the environment.

71 72 TRINI1Y PRESERVATION

The Trinity Site (LA 100,000) is a Archaic, and Puebloan occupation of Nationa l Historic Landmark (NHL) the Trinity Basin. These materials that c on tains diverse cultural preserve evidence of an adaptation to resources, including Trinity-related a dry basin with limited plant and properties as well as prehistoric and lithic resources. Potential research historic ranching sites. These are on topics for Paleoindian. Archaic, and or potentially eligible to the National later prehistoric remains include Register of Historic Places. people's adaptation to the Trinity Preserva tion of these prehistoric. Basin and the distribution of sites in historic . and test-related resources relation to the Pleistocene Lake within Site l.A 100,000 Will provide an Trinity. a fossil lake. The Puebloan important data base for these periods. materials have the potential to The nuclear test related features of provide information on interactions the Trinity Site NHL have local. along the boundary between the regional. national. and international Anasazi to the north and the J omada significance. They embody the Mogollon to the south. features of the first test of an important scientific and technological Administrative Status development. the first nuclear device and the efforts employed to document In 1965. Trinity Site was and monitor the test. The test and d esignated as a Nationa l Historic subsequent detonation of two nuclear Landmark. The folloWing year this bombs over Japan led to a swift important site was entered in the termination of World War II in 1945 n ewly defined National Register of and. ironically, opened the Cold War Historic P laces. In 1968. the period in internationa l relations. Southwest Regional Office of the White Sands Proving Ground became National Park Service (NPS) began White Sands Missile Range , the prepartng a draft Master Plan for a largest national missile test facility National Historic Site {NHS) at within the United States. Trinity, to be administered by NPS. The premilitary historic remains The proposed NHS incorporated an Within the Trinity Site. in addition to area · of about 51.500 acres. The historic documents and oral history, proposal did not progress beyond the provide important information on the draft stage. ranching adaptations prior to 1942 in In 1975, the NPS Landmark Review the Trinity Basin. They preserve Task Force completed the National infonnatton on architecture, family Register nomination for the Trinity lifeways, and the use of resources Site NHL. ln addition to Ground Zero such as water. land. and grass. (i.e., the point of detonation). the Development of WSMR led to a nomination listed five historical r eorgan ization of the regional features associated wtth the Trinity economy away from a reliance on SHe: North 10,000. West 10.000. r anching and significantly affected South 10,000. the George McDonald the lives of the ranching families in Ranch, and the Trinity Base Camp the area. located at the former McDonald Prehistoric sites within Site LA Brothers Ranch. The boundary 100.000 also document Paleoindian, defined an irregular quadrilateral or

73 diamond shape that encloses planned restoration project. approximately 36,480 acres. In 1983, the George McDon ald Although Trinity Site had achieved ranch house was stabilized by WSMR NHL status by the 1970s. several Facilities Engineering. In the significant features had already been following year, a team from the NPS lost. Whereas the NPS had always Denver Service Center supervised the defined Trtnity Site as the entire test restoration. The project included site, including the various shelters stabilization of the ranch and other installations, the U.S. outbuildings. A preservation guide is Army {until the 1970s) understood being prepared for the ranch house. In "Trinity Site" to mean only the point addition. a stabilization plan has of detonation, or Ground Zero (Rieder been developed for the adobe ranch 1992). As a result, shelters and other house at the McDonald Brothers features were allowed to deteriorate: Ranch, the site of Trini~y Base Camp salvage operations were conducted in (Reider 1994). Sta billization has the 1950s: and several Trinity features commenced there. as welll. were determined to be safety hazards The extant bunkers at Trinity West and were demolished in the 1960s. 800 and North 800 also require Management and use of Trinity stabilization. Minimal intervention is Site NHL is currently guided by the needed to replace eroded berms and National Historic Preservation Act of earthen fUJ and to conrect drainage 1966. as amended: federal regulations problems at North 10,000 (LA 15868). concerning cultural resources and the No actual repair or reJPlacement of National Historic Landmark Program: concrete or timbers would be involved, an agreement between the U.S. Anny since the goal is simply to maintain and the New Mexico State Historic the bunkers in their present state. Preservation Division: and a WSMR preventing further deterioration. Regulation. Chemical treatment of extant timbers a ccording to NPS standards 'is also Trinity Recording Project and recommended to prevent additional Architectural Conservation decay and preserve the integrity of the bunkers. as welll as the In 1982-1983. Trinity Site was communication-lines poles and the documented for the Historic American wooden instrument stands. Engineering Record (HAER). Documentation resulted in a historic­ Development properties report {HAER n .d.) with large-format photographs of extant Since the 1950's, \Vhite Sands features and reproductions of the Missile Range has continued to use construction draWings for the shelters the area of the Trinity Test. Areas erected to monitor the nuclear blast. slated for development. have been The George McDonald Ranch House subjected to archaeological survey was recorded With measured drawings and testing projects. resulting in (Documentation Level ij. documentation of a portion of the In 1982. a 12-acre area around the archaeological resources Within the ranch house was surveyed by Trinity Site NHL. archaeologists from Eastern New The major types of potential Mexico University (Schermer 1983). impacts to Trinity Site include but are The purpose of the survey was to not limited to the following: ( 1) locate and identify architectural and facilities maintenance and other artifacts of potential use in the constuction; (2) surface clearing.

74 grading. and grubbing; {3) utilities. fencmg, and transportation rights-of­ way: (4) off-road travel: (5) looting and vandalism; and {6) visual elements. Potential impairmen t of the visual integrity of Trinity Site is particularly important, given the original line-of­ sight corridors established by Manhattan Project personnel for the nuclear test site. Activity that may potentially impact visual integrity includes the past or future construction of towers. communication lines. buildings. structures. or features. The isolaled nature of the test site also needs to be protected. One nearby project. the Aerial Cable T+est Range. made every effort to design their towers. buildings, and other factlitles so they are not visible from Trinity.

75 76 REFERENCES CITED

Bainbridge. K T. Hutchinson. W. H. 1976 Trinity. LA·6300-H, Los Alamos 1956 A Bar Cross Man: The Ufe and Personal Sclentiflc Laboratory of the University Writings of Eugene Manlove R1wdes. of Cali1omia. Los Alamos. New Mexico. Untverslty of Oklahoma Press. Norman. Basehart. Henry 1973 Mescale ro Apache Subsistence lrwln-Wtlllams, Cynthia, and C. Vance Patterns. In Technical Manual.: 1973 Haynes, Jr. Survey of the 'TUlarosa Basin. The 1970 Climatic Change and Early Population Research Design. pp. 144- 181. Human Dynamics in the Southwes tern United Systems Research, lnc.. Albuquerque. States. Quaternary Research 1{1):59·71. Clark, Ira G. 1987 Water in New Mexico: A History of Its Jones, Fayette A Management and Use. University of 1904 New Mexico Mines and Minerals . New New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Mexico Bureau of Immigration, Santa Fe. Darton. N. H. 1928 ·nea Beds" and Associated Fonnations Judge, James W. in New Mexico. wilh an Outline of the 1973 The Paleoindian Occupation of the Giu>logy of the State. Bulletin No. 794. Central Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico. U.S. Geological Survey. Washington. University of New Mexico. Albu­ D.C. querque.

Hall. Rosemary Keyes. C. R. 1986 Letter on Schmidt House. On file. 1905 Geological Structure of the Jomada Office of Public Affairs. White Sands del Muerto and Adjoining Bolson Missile Range. New Mexico. Plains. Iowa Academic Scientific Proceedings 12:160-167. Historic American Englneerlng Record n.d. Photographs. Copies of Reduced Kunetka, James W. Drawings. Written Htstorical and 1979 City ofFire : Los Alamos and the Atomic D escriptive Data. HAER No. NM-lA. Age. 1943·1945. rev. ed. University of National Park Servtce, Department of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. the Interior. Washington. D.C. Lasky. Samuel G. Hoddeson, Lillian. Paul W. Henriksen. Roger 1932 The Ore Deposits of Socorro County. A. Meade~ and Cathertne Westfall New Mexico. Bulletin No. 8. New 1993 Crtttcal Assembly: A Technical History Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mtneral of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Resources. Socorro. Years , 1943·1945. Cambridge UnJversity Press, Cambridge. Laumbach, Karl W. 1991 Executive Summary. In The Aerial Hodge. Ftederick W.. George P. Hammond. Cable Test Capability Project: An and Agapito Rey. editors Archaeological Evaluation of the Jim 1945 Fray Alonso de Benavtdes' Revised Site and Fairview Attematiues. White Memorial of 1634. University of New Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, by Mexico Press. Albuquerque. Human Systems Research. lnc.. Staff. pp. 1-vit. HSR Report No. 9025. Houghton, Frank Tularosa. New Mexico. 1976 Climate. ln Soil Survey of White Sands Missile Range. New Mexico. by Lehmer, Donald J. Raymond E. Neher and Oran F. Bailey. 1948 The Jomada Branch of the Mogollon. pp. 59·60. U.S. Department of Social Science BulleUn No. 17. Agriculture. SoU Conservation Service. Untverstty of Arizona, Tucson. Washington. D.C.

77 Los Alamos NaUonal Laboratory Rieder, Morgan 1986 Los Alamos 1943·1945: The Beginning 1992 Preservation of Histork Properties at of an Era. Los Alamos National Trinity Site National Histone Landmark. Laboratory. Los Alamos, New Mexico. WhUe Sands Missile .Range. Socorro County. New Mexico. Human Systrrns Maag. Carl. and Steve Rohrer Research Report No. B042. Tularosa, 1982 Projecr Trinity. 1945·1946. Defense New Mexico. Nuclear Agency, Washington. D.C. 1994 Proposal for Stabllizatiion of the Dave MacNeish. Richard S .. and Patrick H. Beckett McDonald Ranch House. Trinity Site 1987 The Archaic Chihuahua Tradition of National Historic Landmark. Huma n South-CentraL New Mexico and Systems Research Project No. 9412. Chihuahua. Mextco . Monograph No. 7. Manuscript on file. Human Systems COAS Publishing and Research. Las Research. Lnc .. Las Cruces. Cruces. Rieder, Morgan. and Michael Lawson Marshall. Michael P. 1994 Trinity at F'ifty: Technical Report No. 1. 1973 The Jornada Culture Area. In Trinity Site National Historic Landmark. Technical Manual: 1973 Survey of the White Sands MCssiLe Range, Socorro Tularosa Basin, pp. 49· 1 19. Human County. New Mexico. Human Systc:>ms Systems Research, lnc.. Albuquerque. Research Report No. 9241. Tularosa. New Mexico. Marshall. Michael P., and Henry J . Walt 1984 Rio Abqjo: Prehistory and History of a Ritch. William G. Rio Grande Prouince. Historic 1885 New Mexico and Its J,lesources. New Preservation DIVision, Santa Fe. Mexico Bureau of lmmlgration. Santa Fe. McDonald. Dave 1984 Statement. In Hearing before the Sale, Mark Subcommittee on Public Lands and 1991 Apaches in the San Andres. In Reserved Water of the Committee on Jornada Mogollon Archaeology; Energy and Natural Resources ( 1983). Collected Papers .from the Fifth and U.S. Senate. 98th Congress. U .S. Sixth Jomada MogoUoon Conferences. Government Printing Of[lce. edited by Meliha S. Duran and Patrick Washington, D.C. H. Bec kett, pp. !53· 68. COAS Publishing and HUJman Systems Montgomery. John. and Kathleen Bowman Research, Inc.. Las Cru,ces. 1989 Archaeological Reconnaissance of the Chupadera Arroyo Drainage. Central Sale, Mark. and Karl Laumbach New Mexico. A~ency for Conservation 1989 Reconnaissance in the Upper Jomada Archaeology Report CD89.1. Eastern del Mueno and HembrWo Canyon and New Mextco University, Portales. Other Special Project~•. White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. Human Neal. James T .. Robert E . Smith. and Blair F. Systems Research Report No. 8121. Jones Tularosa. New Mexico. 1983 Pleistocene Lake Trinity, an Evaporite Basin in the Northern Jornada del Schermer, Scott C. Muerto. New Mexico. ln New Mexico 1983 Examinatton of the McDonald Ranch Geological Guidebook. 34th Field Complex on the White San.ds M isslle Conference, Socorro Region 11. pp. Range. Southcentral New Mexico. Vol. 285-290. New Mexico Geological 3 . Agency ror Conservation Society. Archaeology. Eastern New Mexico University, Portales. Rhodes. Eugene Manlove 1968 The Proud Sheriff. Norman. Oklahoma. Sonnichsen. C. L. 1963 Tularosa: Last of the Frontier West. Rhodes. Richard Devtn-Adalr, New York. 1986 The Making of the Atomlc Bomb. Simon and Schuster, New York. 1965 Outlaw: On the Dod9e with Baldy RusseU. Swallow Press. Athens, Ohio.

78 Szasz. Ferenc Morton 1984 Tite Day the Sun Rose TwiCe: The Story of Trinity. University of New Mexico Press. Albuquerque.

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79