Trinity at 50

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.

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