Frank Ontaverous in White Sands, New Mexico

McDonald Ranch

The McDonald ranch house at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Photograph taken by Frank Ontaverous in February 1983 for the HABS/HAER project. Scientists and technicians from the Manhattan project assembled the plutonium bomb for the first atomic bomb test in this house during July of 1945. The blast, centered only about two miles away, blew the windows out of the ranch house, but the adobe structure survived with little damage and was restored in 1984 by the National Park Service.

If you like a good story with science, politics, war, and tragedy, check out Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb.