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THE "BIG HOUSE"
Los Alamos Boys Ranch School and Los Alamos (The Town)
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The "Big House," Los Alamos.

The "Big House" was the dormitory for the Los Alamos Boys Ranch School.  Students slept year-round on its unheated porches.  During the Manhattan Project, the Big House contained, among other things, a library, the Chaplain's Office, and the Red Cross headquarters.  Privileged guests and high-ranking civilians also sometimes stayed there.

The photograph above is reproduced from Edith C. Truslow, with Kasha V. Thayer, ed., Manhattan Engineer District: Nonscientific Aspects of Los Alamos Project Y, 1942 through 1946 (Los Alamos, NM: Manhattan Engineer District, ca. 1946; first printed by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory as LA-5200, March 1973; reprinted in 1997 by the Los Alamos Historical Society), 58.  The photograph below is of a group of Ranch School students in front of the Big House; it is reproduced from "Dateline: Los Alamos," a special issue of the monthly publication of Los Alamos National Laboratory (1995), 7.  At the bottom is an "establishing shot" of Los Alamos in which Fuller Lodge and the Big House are visible in the distance to the left and the right, respectively; click here for more information on this photograph.

Students gathered in front of the Big House, Los Alamos Boys Ranch School.

Los Alamos (Fuller Lodge and the "Big House" are visible in the distance to the left and right, respectively).

Close-up of the Big House.

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