In 1943, the Manhattan Project established a top-secret atomic weapons research facility, known as Site Y, in isolated Los Alamos, New Mexico. Scientists and their families soon began arriving in nearby Santa Fe from all over the country, but remained purposefully uninformed of the project's actual physical location northwest of the city.

Rather than reporting directly to Los Alamos, all team members checked in at 109 East Palace Avenue, a nondescript adobe office building tucked away along Santa Fe's historic plaza. There, new arrivals met office manager Dorothy McKibben, Nicknamed the "gatekeeper" of Los Alamos, who served as the primary link between the covert laboratory and the outside world.

Comforting the confused and often exhausted newcomers, she issued them security passes and directions for the last leg of their journey up to Site Y.

After the successful detonation of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the U.S. government released information regarding the secret work conducted in Los Alamos, but the office at 109 E. Palace Avenue continued to operate until 1963, when Dorothy McKibben locked the office doors for the last time.

Now a storefront, only a small brass plaque in the courtyard marks the building's significance. Despite its integral role in one of the most significant undertakings of the twentieth century, 109 East Palace Avenue remains inconspicuous in Santa Fe's historic landscape.

Podcast Written and Narrated by Erika Wilhite, Public History Student at the University of West Florida.