On Sunday, September 9, 1945, Trinity Site was opened to the press for
the first time. This was mainly to dispel rumors of lingering high
radiation levels there, as well as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Led by
General Groves and Oppenheimer, this widely publicized visit made
Trinity front page news all over the country.

Trinity Site was later encircled with more than a mile of chain link
fencing and posted with signs warning of radioactivity. In the early
1950s most of the remaining Trinitite in the crater was bulldozed into
a underground concrete bunker near Trinity. Also at this time the
crater was back filled with new soil. In 1963 the Trinitite was
removed from the bunker, packed into 55-gallon drums, and loaded into
trucks belonging to the Atomic Energy Commission (the successor of the
Manhattan Project). Trinity site remained off-limits to military and
civilian personnel of the range and closed to the public for many
years, despite attempts immediately after the war to turn Trinity into
a national monument.

In 1953 about 700 people attended the first Trinity Site open house
sponsored by the Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce and the Missile Range.
Two years later, a small group from Tularosa, NM visited the site on
the 10th anniversary of the explosion to conduct a religious service
and pray for peace.

Regular visits have been made annually in recent years on the first
Saturday in October instead of the anniversary date of July 16, to
avoid the desert heat. Later Trinity Site was opened one additional
day on the first Saturday in April. The Site remains closed to the
public except for these two days, because it lies within the impact