Based on a number of criteria that included availability, distance from Los Alamos, good weather, few or no settlements, and that no Indian land would be used, the choices for the test site were narrowed down to two in the summer of 1944. First choice was the military training area in southern California. The second choice, was the Jornada del Muerto Valley in New Mexico. The final site selection was made in late August 1944 by Major General Leslie R. Groves, the military head of the Manhattan Project. When General Groves discovered that in order to use the California location he would need the permission of its commander, General George Patton, Groves quickly decided on the second choice, the Jornada del Muerto. This was because General Groves did not want anything to do with the flamboyant Patton, who Groves had once described as "the most disagreeable man I had ever met."[1] Despite being second choice the remote Jornada was a good location for the test, because it provided isolation for secrecy and safety, was only 230 miles south of Los Alamos, and was already under military control. Plus, the Jornada enjoyed relatively good weather.
The history of the Jornada is in itself quite fascinating, since it was given its name by the Spanish conquerors of New Mexico. The Jornada was a short cut on the Camino Real, the King's Highway that linked old Mexico to Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico. The Camino Real went north from Mexico City till it joined the Rio Grande near present day El Paso, Texas. Then the trail followed the river valley further north to a point where the river curved to the west, and its valley narrowed and became impassable for the supply wagons. To avoid this obstacle, the wagons took the dubious detour north across the Jornada del Muerto. Sixty miles of desert, very little water, and numerous hostile Apaches. Hence the name Jornada del Muerto, which is often translated as the journey of death or as the route of the dead man. It is also interesting to note that in the late 16th century, the Spanish considered their province of New Mexico to include most of North America west of the Mississippi!
The origin of the code name Trinity for the test site is also interesting, but the true source is unknown. One popular account attributes the name to J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific head of the Manhattan Project. According to this version, the well read Oppenheimer based the name Trinity on the fourteenth Holy Sonnet by John Donne, a 16th century English poet and sermon writer. The sonnet started, "Batter my heart, three-personed God."[2] Another version of the name's origin comes from University of New Mexico historian Ferenc M. Szasz. In his 1984 book, The Day the Sun Rose Twice, Szasz quotes Robert W. Henderson head of the Engineering Group in the Explosives Division of the Manhattan Project. Henderson told Szasz that the name Trinity came from Major W. A. (Lex) Stevens. According to Henderson, he and Stevens were at the test site discussing the best way to haul Jumbo (see below) the thirty miles from the closest railway siding to the test site. "A devout Roman Catholic, Stevens observed that the railroad siding was called 'Pope's Siding.' He [then] remarked that the Pope had special access to the Trinity, and that the scientists would need all the help they could get to move the 214 ton Jumbo to its proper spot."[3]
The Trinity test was originally set for July 4, 1945. However, final preparations for the test, which included the assembly of the bomb's plutonium core, did not begin in earnest until Thursday, July 12. The abandoned George McDonald ranch house located two miles south of the test site served as the assembly point for the device's core. After assembly, the plutonium core was transported to Trinity Site to be inserted into the thing or gadget as the atomic device was called. But, on the first attempt to insert the core it stuck! After letting the temperatures of the core and the gadget equalize, the core fit perfectly to the great relief of all present. The completed device was raised to the top of a 100-foot steel tower on Saturday, July 14. During this process workers piled up mattresses beneath the gadget to cushion a possible fall. When the bomb reached the top of the tower without mishap, installation of the explosive detonators began. The 100-foot tower (a surplus Forest Service fire-watch tower) was designated Point Zero. Ground Zero was at the base of the tower.
As a result of all the anxiety surrounding the possibility of a failure of the test, a verse by an unknown author circulated around Los Alamos. It read:
From this crude lab that spawned a dud.
Their necks to Truman's ax uncurled
Lo, the embattled savants stood,
and fired the flop heard round the world.[4]
A betting pool was also started by scientists at Los Alamos on the possible yield of the Trinity test. Yields from 45,000 tons of TNT to zero were selected by the various bettors. The Nobel Prize-winning (1938) physicist Enrico Fermi was willing to bet anyone that the test would wipe out all life on Earth, with special odds on the mere destruction of the entire State of New Mexico!
Meanwhile back at the test site, technicians installed seismographic and photographic equipment at varying distances from the tower. Other instruments were set up for recording radioactivity, temperature, air pressure, and similar data needed by the project scientists.