Historic Roads of Los Alamos (The Los Alamos Story, No. 7)

Los Alamos is squeezed into a small space. It is constrained on the south and east by the [Los Alamos National]Laboratory, on the north and west by the forest service. The town has nowhere to expand. It develops whatever land it can for residential, business, and recreational use. Prehistoric and historic sites have been swept away by the need to develop. Few town folk even know about these remnants of our past. Old roads survive because they are in locations seemingly unfit for any other use. They have inadvertently become treasures. With these words, Dorothy Hoard concludes a special glimpse into the history of the people who preceded the present-day residents of the Pajarito Plateau. They were Paleo-Indians, Spanish soldiers, missionaries, U.S. soldiers from Fort Marcy, lumbermen, sheepherders, homesteaders, ranchers, young students and masters, at an isolated school, and finally, scientists who took over the isolation to build the first atomic bomb. All have left their mark, and whether that influence is seen in still-visible wagon wheel ruts or a modern road clinging to the side of a canyon, each has a story to tell. Hoard tells that story through the eyes of one who knows and loves the land of which she speaks.