The Building 1900 Complex is composed of several buildings constructed
in 1936, several of which, 1900, 1901, 1905, 1908 and 1909, have been
determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places by the
New Mexico Historic Preservation Office. Kirtland Environmental
Management is preparing the nomination of the complex to the National
Register.

Commissioned by Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick Simms, John Gaw Meem designed
the complex for the Sandia School in the Territorial style. Permitted to
the Department of War during World War II for use as a hospital, the
complex was purchased by the university for research on the Navy
proximity fuze. The Atomic Energy Commission purchased the complex,
which was then used for Sandia National Labs. The complex was
transferred to the Air Force from the Atomic Energy Commission on July
1, 1958. Until 1991 the complex was the Kirtland West Officers Club. The
Department of Energy has permitted the complex from the Air Force and it
is now the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) Energy
Training Complex.

Trained as a civil engineer as a graduate of the Virginia Military
Institute, John Gaw Meem chose Santa Fe, New Mexico as his home in order
to recover his health from contracting tuberculosis in the early 1920's.
Through the influence of his physician, Dr. Frank Mera, during his
recuperation, Meem became interested in southwestern architecture. Meem
adapted the ancient earth forms of the Native Americans to modern needs,
notable the brick copings of rooflines, which characterized the
Territorial style, the aspects of the patio and the decorative as well
as protective function of the portal or covered walkway, which
characterize the Spanish Colonial style. John Gaw Meem's contribution to
New Mexico includes public buildings, banking and commercial houses,
domestic dwellings, a whole plaza, the University of New Mexico campus
schools, a military armory, theater, courthouse, a hospital and museum.

Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick Simms had founded a private school for girls
in 1932, but it was not until a few years later that she decided to
provide the school with a 125-acre campus and buildings. She wanted a
complete plant: academic buildings to accommodate 80 students, dormitory
for 10 immediately and 30 in the future, suites for day teachers and the
necessary facilities to feed and maintain the school. Documents show
that the school cost \$307,445 to construct in 1936-37. She drew many
local artists into the school expansion. John Gaw Meem, who had just
finished designing her home, Los Poblanos, and an adjoining guest house
"La Quinta" ("The Villa"), designed the school buildings in the New
Mexican "territorial" style, low buildings with soft white walls and red
tile roofs. In the dining and reception hall were murals by Olive Rush,
a well-known modernist painter from Santa Fe, showing aspects of student
life. In a garden of native cactus and shrubs, Ruth installed a
sculpture by the realist Santa Fe artist Eugenie Shonnard. This
sculpture was moved in 1949 to the campus of New Mexico School of Mining
and Technology in Socorro. Today the sculpture stands in front of the
Student Union Building.

Ruth Hanna McCormick Simms was a nationally known politician, community
leader, educator, publisher, rancher and supporter of the arts. Born in
1880 to Mark Hanna and Charlone Augusta Rhodes in Cleveland, Ohio. Ruth
learned the art of politics from her father, who in 1894 turned his
interests from business to politics, raising money for the campaign of
William McKinley for Ohio governor. The campaign that Mark Hanna waged
for McKinley in 1986 for President of the U.S. was a new kind of
campaign, using the new "educational" or propaganda technique, was
unprecedented. His thorough methods became a model for his daughter's
later campaigns. Ruth made her first political speech in 1896, stumping
the country with her father in support of McKinley. She was still in
high school at the time, but in a small town in the Dakotas, Mark
Hanna's voice reportedly gave out after 16 speeches and Ruth took over
his elocutionary duties. Later when Hanna became a U.S. Senator, she
accompanied him to Washington as his personal secretary. Widowed in
1925, Ruth was elected U.S. Congresswoman-at-large from Illinois in 1928
for a two-year term. She won by the largest margin ever received in
Illinois and became the first woman ever to win statewide election in
the U.S. She was featured on the cover of "Time" magazine the week of
April 23, 1928, the first and only female politician to appear there
until 1959, when Margaret Chase Smith and her opponent shared a cover
celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the suffrage amendment. In 1932,
she married former Congressman Albert Simms and moved to Albuquerque. In
1939, Ruth Hanna McCormick Simms would become the first woman named to
manage a pre-convention presidential campaign. There would not be
another woman campaign manager for nearly half a century.

The expansion of Kirtland Air Force Base and the war economy ultimately
forced Sandia School to close its doors. As Mrs. Simms wrote to the
parent of one of her students: "When I selected our present site it was
thought to be too far out on the mesa. Three years later the commercial
airport was located two miles south of the school. It did not disturb us
and proved to be a great convenience. Last year the Government took
advantage of the airport and established a bombing unit of the Air
Force. The planes have not disturbed us as much as I had feared they
would, but now the enlargement of the Air Base makes it necessary for
the Government to condemn part of our land, and their building program
will make it impossible for us to continue the school in our present
location."

During World War II, the Air Force leased the school for use as a
hospital for which the Meem office planned certain modifications, and
eventually the military purchased the whole property. Meem converted the
faculty bedrooms upstairs in Bienvenida Hall into nurse stations. The
dining room became an officer's mess. A kitchen was built west of the
library, which continued its former function now in a medical guise.
Next to it was a small post exchange. Many of the floors were cemented
over so that hospital carts could move over them more smoothly. The
Olive Rush murals may have been plastered over. Decorative tiles that
originally surrounded the fireplaces in the reception room and dining
room are still in place.

In early 1945, the New Mexico School of Mines, later the New Mexico
Institute of Mining and Technology, purchased the building from Mr.
Albert Simms for work on the proximity-fuze development under contract
to the Navy. It occupied the buildings until early 1949, and when it
left, the school apparently took Eugenie Shonnard's statue, "The Desert
Maiden," which is at the school campus in Socorro.

In November 1948, the Army Corps of Engineers acquired the property for
the Atomic Energy Commission, and in 1949 the applied physics personnel
from the Sandia Branch of the Los Alamos Laboratory, the future Sandia
National Laboratories, located at Sandia Base, occupied the former girls
school building, now renamed Sandia West Lab. When Sandia Branch first
came into existence in April 1948, its personnel strength was 470. By
March 31, 1949, there were 1420 people on its payroll. Construction
could not keep up with this rapid expansion so the school was a
temporary location until July 1951.

Soon after Sandia Labs personnel moved out, the Santa Fe Operations
Office of the Atomic Energy Commission took over the complex and
remained there until February 1958. At this time, an annex, Building
1902, was constructed on the northeast side of the former La Journada
classroom building. There were other modifications to the four buildings
around the quadrangle, including removing partitions, moving doorways,
and installing asphalt tile upstairs in Bienvenida (Building 1900). In
1953 Building 1903 was constructed northeast of Bienvenida. In 1955 all
of the former school land north of Gibson Boulevard, except that on
which the buildings stood was transferred to Kirtland Air Force Base,
and on 1 July 1958 the buildings themselves were transferred to the
base. The Air Force completed additional modifications by April 1965,
consisting of a 7,023 square foot addition at a cost of \$262,644, and a
drive through canopy, which was erected over the front entrance.

The Department of Energy (DOE) did the most recent renovation of the
complex for the Energy Training Complex (ETC), which began April 1994
under the direction of DOE Headquarters, DOE Albuquerque Operations
Office, and Willard Eastman, AIA, of DWL Architects in Albuquerque. The
DOE/NNSA's ETC currently has twelve training/meeting rooms, including an
auditorium and computer lab, which can accommodate approximately 500
individuals. The majority of the renovation focused on Buildings 1900
and 1902. The DOE worked closely with the State Historic Preservation
Office to maintain the historic and architectural authenticity of the
complex.