BATHTUB ROW PRESS News:

The first families moved into the Pajarito Acres development in Los Alamos in 1965, but their quest for those homes had begun three years earlier when a group of volunteers formed the Pajarito Acres Development Corporation. Their goal was to make possible privately owned, acreage homes as an alternative to the government housing managed by the Atomic Energy Commission.  

The project attracted “an eclectic herd of roughly 150 iconoclasts. They were all fed up with the government standards of architecture and restrictions,” Bruce Krohn, whose family was one of those pursuing a different lifestyle, said. White Rock and Barranca Mesa were offering a suburban setting, but the Pajarito Acres volunteers “wanted bigger lots and more choices in how to live,” Krohn added. “They wanted horses in the back yard, maybe a half dozen dogs, or a llama in the kitchen.”

In Pajarito Acres, Ramsay describes how the development corporation contended with the AEC, Los Alamos County, contractors, and Mother Nature to reach its objective. Historic photos, documents, and maps, along with a wealth of quotes from people who lived or grew up in Pajarito Acres, embellish the interesting and uncommon birth of this unique housing development.

Shared stories of contending with muddy roads, mothers picking up students on horseback at the bus stop, and the homegrown solutions to sewage systems make the reader appreciate the frontier spirit of the early occupants. Their story is an important part of the unique history of the Los Alamos community in transition from a government-run town to private homeownership.

Pajarito Acres: A Bootstrap Volunteer Land Development is 51 pages long, and is the fifth publication in the Nutshell Series of well-researched “history in a nutshell” topics of interest to Los Alamos. It is available for $15 in the Museum Shop of the Los Alamos History Museum, 1050 Bathtub Row.

Bathtub Row Press is the publishing imprint of the Los Alamos Historical Society. For more information, visit losalamoshistory.org or contact Bathtub Row Press at publications@losalamoshistory.org.