The House of Oppenheimer

A New Mexico Tale

This summer’s three-hour film “American Prometheus” details the tortured life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist behind the bomb. Once again, the movie (as well as the book of the same name) is a reminder of New Mexico’s unwitting place in the bomb’s terrible legacy.  

The Pajarito Plateau, at more than a mile high and thick with pine and juniper, remained unknown to most outsiders in the early 1940s. Yet at less than an hour’s drive from Santa Fe, it proved ideally located for the top-secret Manhattan Project. Project scientists lived there in perfect secrecy, working feverishly to build the first atomic bomb. On August 9, 1945, their creation (tested only the month before) was dropped on Hiroshima, putting an end to World War II. Since that day, the mountain retreat at Los Alamos always would be known as the birthplace of the atomic bomb.

Los Alamos was once the idyllic home of the Los Alamos Ranch School. Built in 1917 atop a wide plateau, the exclusive boys camp catered to the sons of wealthy midwestern families. The boys spent their summers on horseback riding the canyons bordering the plateau, camping in the nearby mountains, and learning the outdoor life.

During that same time, young Robert Oppenheimer was leading a different boy’s life, buried in his studies at the Ethical Culture School in New York City. Founded in 1880 by Jewish reformers, the school followed liberal, socially responsible tenets aimed at helping Jewish families assimilate into American society. Robert, whose father was a prosperous businessman, was one of its students as was Francis Fergusson, a scholarship student from New Mexico. Their senior year, Francis, outgoing and open, invited his socially awkward friend to join him in New Mexico for the summer. Like the boys at the ranch, the two friends spent many glorious days on the plateau, riding horses and camping in the mountains. On one trip to Albuquerque, Francis introduced Robert to Paul Horgan, a fellow New Mexican. The three young men would become lifelong friends.

 Photo courtesy of the National Park Service/Feller.

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J. Robert Oppenheimer, in November of 1942, would be selected to head the Manhattan Project. That month, the government purchased the 470-acre ranch school and its buildings for $350,000. Afterward, incoming scientists toured the ranch houses to choose where they and their families would live for the duration of the project. Oppenheimer chose a timbered and stone house on Peach St. He and his wife Kitty, along with their two children, lived in the house from 1943-1945.

Francis Fergusson would go on to study at Harvard and at Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He later found success as a literary and theater critic. He was from well-known New Mexico families on both sides. His father, Harvey Fergusson Sr., helped win statehood for New Mexico, while his mother Clara Mary Fergusson’s father was Franz Huning, a wealthy merchant instrumental in Albuquerque’s development. His sister, Erna Fergusson, a journalist and nationally recognized author, wrote extensively about New Mexico’s history and culture. 

Paul Horgan would serve as an army colonel during the war, for which he received the Legion of Merit. When Paul was a boy his family moved to Albuquerque for his father’s health. He later attended New Mexico Military Institute where he became friends with the future artist Peter Hurd. Horgan, who never finished college, would go on to write 40 books and win a Pulitzer for the historical epic, Great River: The Rio Grande in American History. He won a second Pulitzer for Lamy of Santa Fe, a biography of Archbishop Juan Bautista Lamy.

Read more:

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

The Day the Sun Rose Twice : The Story of the Trinity Site Nuclear Explosion, July 16, 1945 by Ferenc M. Szasz

Atomic Paradise by Jules Nyquist

Downwind: A People’s History of the Nuclear West  by Sarah Alisabeth Fox