Technical Area 14
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Q-Site
1944, Leslie Groves, J. Robert Oppenheimer, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Willard C. Kruger. Los Alamos National Laboratory.
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Shop and Darkroom Building (Courtesy of Los Alamos National Laboratory)
Q-Site in Technical Area 14 was used to record small-scale cylinder implosions with a rotating prism camera and flash photography. Set up in 1944, the site originally included high explosives magazines, a control building, firing chambers, and the surviving shop and darkroom building (TA-14-6). Sheathed with tar paper and asbestos shingles, this simple structure has a shed roof and wood framing on a concrete slab foundation. The shop occupied three-quarters of the building, with the darkroom at the back, and had onsite water and septic tanks.
The building is eligible but not yet included in the Manhattan National Historical Park.
References
Los Alamos National Laboratory. The History and Legacy of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Los Alamos, NM: Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2015.
McGehee, Ellen, Sheila McCarthy, Ken Towery, John Ronquillo, Kari Garcia, and John Isaacson. Sentinels of the Atomic Dawn: A Multiple-Property Evaluation of the Remaining Manhattan Project Properties at Los Alamos (1942–1946). Historic Building Survey Report No. 215. Los Alamos: Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2003.
National Park Service. Manhattan Project Sites. Special Resource Study/Environmental Assessment. Washington, D.C.: Department of the Interior, 2010.
Writing Credits
Coordinator:
Christopher C. Mead
Regina N. Emmer
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