NEWS FROM CORPORATE HISTORY
Sandia and Albuquerque
It is not easy for younger employees to visualize
what Sandia and Albuquerque were like from the late
1940s through the subsequent two decades. But then
that's our job here at the Corporate History/Archives
Program--to help the Sandians of today look back and
try to understand the very different Labs and community
of years past. Of course, none of us were here at
the time--in 1952, for example, your Corporate Historian
Carl Mora was still in a New York City high school
and New Mexico was nonexistent in his mind. But over
the summer Carl interviewed a number of remarkable
Sandians, now retired, who provided a very personal
and vivid glimpse of those vanished days. This work
forms part of the ongoing research for Volume II of
Sandia's administrative and technical history.
Albuquerque, 1959 |
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear
(the mid 1950s) when Albuquerque's eastern and northern
limits ended at San Pedro and Lomas. Beyond was barren
sun-baked land just waiting to appreciate. In those
days, city residents went downtown (specifically, Central
Avenue between the railroad tracks and around 9th Street)
for shopping, entertainment, and socializing. Between
the Wyoming gate and Central Avenue (historic Route
66) there was nothing much besides bare open land occasionally
animated by tumbleweeds. Along Route 66 between San
Pedro and Tijeras, there were occasional gas stations,
motels, and strip businesses to accommodate motorists
passing through Albuquerque. Kirtland AFB, Sandia Base,
and Sandia itself were quite isolated from the city,
and many Sandians still lived on base housing but were
starting to buy homes in the rapidly growing new subdivisions
in the Northeast Heights.
World War II brought new military and research facilities
to what had been a small, rather sleepy, Southwestern
city. The great infusion of people associated with
these facilities in the postwar years created a water
crisis. There were simply not enough wells tapping
into the plentiful subterranean Rio Grande aquifer
to provide for all the new homes and base buildings.
The existing City Commission, controlled by ex-governor
Clyde Tingley and his supporters, was generally unresponsive
to the utility needs of a growing city. So a number
of Sandia employees saw the need to become involved
in city government. In 1952 a group of Sandians that
included Dick Bice and Ray Powell formed the Citizens
Committee and ran a slate, which included Bice, of
candidates for the City Commission. The reform group
won handily and gained control of the City Commission
from the Tingley incumbents. Dick Bice, as City Commissioner,
devised a strategy to fund the expansion of the water
system. From 1954 to 1958, 190 miles of water pipe
were added to the system, and water shortages and
rationing faded into the past. Traffic was eased as
the result of the paving of 157 miles of streets.
The city staff increased dramatically, with some departments
more than doubling during these four years. And to
pay for such improvements, new taxes were levied,
the most significant of which was a one-cent sales
tax.
Sandia Vice President Dick Bice was a
city commissioner and is a well known supporter of
city museums, having served on the Board of Trustees
of the Museum of Albuquerque and as president of the
New Mexico Museum of Natural History Foundation. In
November 1977, Bice removed the first shovel of dirt
at the ground breaking of the Albuquerque Museum.
Museum Director Suzanne de Borhegyi observed while
Mayor Harry Kinney applauded. Kinney himself was a
Sandia engineer from 1956 until elected to the Mayor's
office in 1973, serving two terms, 1973-1977 and 1981-1985.
After Dick Bice left the City Commission in 1962,
Mayor Harry Kinney (an ex-Sandian, he served two terms
as mayor, 1973-77 and 1981-1985) asked him to chair
a Museum Advisory Committee because he knew of Bice's
strong interest in creating a city history museum.
The Albuquerque City Museum opened in its temporary
quarters in the old airline terminal in 1967, and
in 1979 moved to its present location in Old Town.
Bice also was instrumental in obtaining funding for
the Natural History Museum, which opened in 1986.
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