Los Alamos History Museum - Museum in Los Alamos - 1050 Bathtub Row, USA

OPPENHEIMER HISTORY! I drove here just to do a little research on Robert Oppenheimer before watching the movie. This is a small museum, but does provide some background information on the whole Manhattan Project and Robert Oppenheimer. It was definitely worth my time! :-)

The museum is nicely done and explains much of the history of the area and the Manhattan Project. There is a main building and several other houses, including the Oppenheimer house (not open while we were there). The docents were excellent at providing information and color.

Important part of history that most of us know very little about. The story of how this all happened is so interesting. The volunteers were very knowledgeable and informative.

Costs $5 to get in and the museum covers the history of Los Alamos including the Manhattan Project. Not too big - 3 rooms and a house with some additional exhibits. They are raising money to refurbish the house that Oppenheimer lived in. Walking from the main museum to the other houses is on smooth, easy to walk on paths and the distance is pretty short. People were friendly and helpful. Not as kid oriented and interactive as the Bradbury Museum just a few blocks away, but interesting info on the area and how the town developed to what it is today.

Great place to visit and learn about the people that were involved in the Manhattan project

Wow -we spent three hours here. We took the guided tour, and then spent some time on our own. Covers prehistory to contemporary times and covers the Manhattan Project in great detail. Fascinating. I thought I knew a lot about this and I was stunned at how much I learned here.

If you're interested in this, just visit the museum/buildings and skip the tour. The tour was pretty bad. First of all, one of the tour guides said he doesn't speak very loudly which was incredibly unfortunate. It was a big group, the tour was outside so it was very loud, and even standing next to him with average hearing it was hard to hear him. A simple microphone and portable speaker would have helped a ton. The content of the tour wasn't much better.... they focused so much on the boys school. Sure, talk about it for a few minutes because that's part of the history, but the most interesting parts are the Manhatten project. The tour guides were scientists and lived in the area for decades - it would have been awesome to hear more about their personal stories, explanations of the science behind everything, and how it was being there when they were filming the movie. That seemed like a big missed opportunity. Anyway, the tour needs to be rewritten a bit to make it more concise and also updated.

It’s a nice museum, but there’s not a lot to it. All the history posted is simple. The statues of Groves and Oppenheimer are the highlight and that’s not part of the museum. The big question they pose is whether or not the government should have been that secretive. That question seems obvious and far down the list for me.