Minuteman Missile National Historic Site visitor center / Rebecca Latson
“A strange game … The only winning move is not to play” – War Games, 1983.
When I was 11 years old, my fifth-grade teacher put on an instructional video for the class about how to prepare and then live in a bomb shelter beneath one’s home. She didn’t give any particular reason for showing this movie, nor did we have any Cold War history conversation afterward. The teacher just showed this black-and-white movie narrated by a man with a calm voice instructing the viewer on such things as going topside for short periods of time to retrieve cans of food not already stocked in the shelter and wiping those cans to remove radioactive particles before opening them for consumption.
If you were born between the 1950s and 1990s, you and your parents will have lived during an era of heightened tensions and rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union beginning after World War II. Both countries possessed the nuclear capability to totally wipe each other out. Despite the “trash talk,” neither side particularly wanted to risk launching an attack because of the equally-destructive resulting counterattack. This strategy known as MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction – acted as a deterrent to all-out nuclear war.
Fast forward to the present day. While traveling Interstate 90 east from, or west toward the community of Wall, South Dakota, you might notice a modern brick-and-glass building sitting just off the highway, all by itself, surrounded by vast prairieland. The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site visitor center is one of three different areas comprising this national historic site commemorating a “perilous period of world history,” according to the National Park Service.
Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Map / NPS
It’s understandable for you to think this might be a one-and-done stop along the way to or from one of the other South Dakota units of the National Park System. Why bother? After my own visit, I can tell you it’s worth the stop to learn an important slice of American and world history, learn about the personnel who worked around nuclear weapons on a daily basis, and learn the deadly, devastating power from even one nuclear blast.
Map of active (red) and inactive (black) Minuteman missile fields, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / NPS file
A visit here will give you pause for thought.
Visitor center lobby, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
Walk into the spacious lobby and make your way to the theater to explore the history of the Minuteman missiles and the reasons for placing “a vast arsenal of nuclear missiles” beneath the prairies and farmlands of the Great Plains in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado. Learn about these vast missile fields “hidden in plain sight,” with their nuclear payloads, the “missileers” who manned the launch facilities, and how the American civilian population prepared for a possible nuclear attack by practicing “duck and cover” drills at schools and building home fallout shelters. This era spurred the growth of science fiction and Cold War movies, and even comic books that “either fueled or calmed fears.”
After viewing the park’s movie, wander through the small museum full of Cold War memorabilia, posters, short videos, and trivia.
When the home front becomes the front line, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
Freeways, fallout shelters, and family basements, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
Life Magazine cover, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
Page through a binder displaying the projected range of destruction from a nuclear bomb blast on various major cities of the United States.
Projected one-megaton airburst destruction range for San Antonio Texas, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
Projected one-megaton airburst destruction range for Seattle, Washington, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
One-megaton bomb range of destruction explanation, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
Before exiting the museum, add your own thoughts along with others’ comments.
Visitor comments, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
Back in your vehicle, continue your exploration of this national historic site and drive approximately four miles west from the visitor center toward Exit 116 for Missile Silo Delta-09, where you can peer through a window down onto an in-place missile (sans nuclear warhead, of course).
After parking and before passing through that chain-link-and-barbed-wire-fence onto the silo area, just stand a moment to survey this lonely-looking landscape. The only sounds you’ll hear (aside from occasional passing vehicles on the nearby interstate highway) are the constant wind and chirping crickets.
Delta-09 missile silo, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
There’s a sign near the glassed-in missile with a number to call for an audio tour of the missile silo.
Audio tour sign for the Delta-09 missile silo site, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
At the ready, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
Return to your car and drive east, back toward the visitor center. Turn off at Exit 127 for your Delta-01 Launch Control Facility Tour. The tour is limited to 6 people at a time and the reservations are “harder to snag than a Broadway ticket,” according to our ranger guide. On this tour, you’ll explore the above-ground launch facility, then take an elevator 31 feet below ground, walking past an open eight-ton metal blast door to enter the launch control room – a cramped capsule furnished with a toilet, sink, single bunk bed, and loads of 1960s computer equipment along with a couple of keys where missileers possessed the ability to discharge a thermonuclear missile attack or counterattack.
Delta-01 Launch Facility, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
The eight-ton blast door at the Delta-01 launch facility, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
Ground-level interior view of the Delta-01 Launch Facility site, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
The below-ground launch facility control room, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site / Rebecca Latson
If you have a reservation for the Delta-01 tour, my advice is to visit the other two areas first prior to your tour for a complete feel of Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. These places are sobering reminders of a time when two nations were poised to destroy one another with the synchronized turning of two keys.
If you are not going to be near this national historic site anytime soon, you can still watch the visitor center video here.
Trivia
- Located in southwestern South Dakota and covering more than 13,500 square miles, there were 15 Launch Control Facilities that commanded and controlled 150 Launch Facilities (Missile Silos) holding Minuteman ICBMs.
- The Delta-09 silo was one of 150 spread across western South Dakota. In total there were 1,000 Minuteman missiles deployed from the 1960’s into the early 1990’s.
- A Minuteman could travel at speeds of more than 15,000 miles an hour and strike its intended target within the Soviet Union in less than 30 minutes.
- The pizza sign on the blast door was painted by Tony Gatlin.
- Heavy springs connect to the missile launch control room (basically a shipping container) to withstand a nearby bomb blast. Potentially loose items were strapped down to prevent injury from the inevitable back-and-forth bounce.
- One week’s food and water supply was stored beneath the floorboards of the launch control room. Above the launch control room was a 500-lb orange hatch in the ceiling to allow the missileers to escape the confines of the room after a nuclear attack. Sand filled a three-feet-wide tube to about five feet below the hidden opening in the ground allowing escape. The sand would fall into the opening between the launch control facility and the wall of the capsule, and one of the missileers would begin digging out while the other determined what was needed for the topside, since it was highly unlikely any help would be soon forthcoming. While there were supplies available for escape (oxygen, medical kit, inflatable pillows, flashlights), there were no suits to protect against radiation. The Delta-01 control room was 31 feet beneath the surface; other control rooms elsewhere were deeper, meaning more sand filling the escape tube to the surface. According to the ranger tour guide, while the old knobs and buttons of the launch control room have been replaced by touch screens and more modern computer equipment, the method of escape remains the same.
- The noise from the machinery in the launch control room caused hearing issues later in life for missileers.
- You can listen to interviews from former missileers here.
- If you aren’t able to take the tour in-person, you can watch this YouTube video created by the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site.
