An apparently simple life was the city keynote. Traffic lights were unknown. With dry goods stores, restaurants, a drugstore, and other merchants around its borders, the Plaza reigned as the community’s gathering place. Iron troughs were still in place to water horses, mules, and donkeys. It was six years until the Manhattan Project would transform the region. It was three years until John O. Crosby, later founder of the Santa Fe Opera, would enter the Los Alamos Ranch School. And that year, the Santa Fe Super Chief started regular railway service between Chicago and Los Angeles, with a stop near Santa Fe at Lamy, New Mexico.