Strangelove park
Tourists on South
Dakota’s Interstate 90 may soon visit more than just Mount
Rushmore, Prairie Dog Town and the world’s largest drugstore, Wall
Drug. Some of the nation’s 1,000 Minuteman missile silos are ripe
for historic preservation, says the National Park Service, which is
looking at two launch sites adjacent to Badlands National Park. The
Defense Department boasted in 1962 that the Minuteman – America’s
first “push-button nuclear missile’ – could reach Soviet targets in
under 30 minutes. When the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War
ended, says Park Service staffer Gregory Kendrick, missiles were
quickly dismantled. Now, “we’re afraid of losing something of
significance,” he says. The Park Service is considering two silos
for preservation, Delta sites one and nine, because they are on
easily transferable Forest Service land and sit close to the
popular I-90 corridor. If they are designated historic sites,
visitors will feel they are viewing a “day-in-the-life of a
Minuteman missileer,” says a Park Service study. During alert
status, two-man crews sat underground, strapped into chairs in
blast-proof launch centers, awaiting commands from the president.
Management alternatives for the two silos include destroying them,
hiring a private company to preserve the sites, or designating them
as National Historic Sites. To receive a copy of the Minuteman
Special Resource Study, contact Gregory Kendrick, National Park
Service, P.O. Box 25287, Denver, CO 80225-0287
(303/969-2875).
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Strangelove Park.
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