Communities

In the years prior to World War II, northern New Mexico was a rural region made up of farms, ranches, and small villages. When the U.S. War Department acquired the Pajarito Plateau for the Los Alamos Laboratory in late 1942, many of the miners and factory workers returned home to take jobs with the Manhattan Project. These early Los Alamos workers from surrounding communities contributed significantly to the development of the first atomic bombs, which ended World War II and changed the world forever.