According to this article at the Star Tribune, North Dakota wants to convert an abandoned missile silo into a tourist attraction named in honor of Reagan.
Most people would go, “yet another lame attempt by North Dakota to try to bring people into their state.” It’s not exactly as if Moorhead’s Heritage Hjemkomst Interpretive Center is all that wonderful of an attraction and it’s not even in ND! To me, I would love to see this cold war relic.
There’s an abandoned Nike Missile Silo down in Farmington (see the map above and switch it to Satellite) that I have been wanting to see. There are some health risks at the site because of contaminants but nothing even close to what is in the ground over by the Gopher Ordnance/Ammunition Plant in Rosemount.
According to this article the Dakota County Historical Society, no agency has officially adopted the site even though it and its inner workings are in surprisingly good shape. While the state has declared the site eligible for the National Registry, it has yet to become a registered historic site. For those of us that are interested in Cold War history, this is a true travesty.
If you’re interested, there are several other sites in Minnesota and this site offers some in depth info. There are some great resources out there including pics, etc, but a site showing all locations of Nike sites of the San Fransisco Bay area is one of my favorites.
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April 20th, 2007 at 9:49 am
I’ve been to the Titan II missile base south of Tuscon (the only publicly accessible Titan II in the country). We had a blast there (pun intended)… It was a fairly good tour and they gave you some good perspective of what it was like to work there at the time.
I see they now offer a ‘tour’ that allows you to sleep there overnight as if you were one of the crew. I’m not sure I see the appeal in that but someone must.
April 20th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Oops, the coordinates I had entered to force the pointer were wrong. I’ve fixed that now.
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:46 am
The NIKE site in question was filled by it’s former owner 2-3 years ago and was recently sold to private owners. There is a NIKE site in San Francisco that has been preserved for vistors. Any I don’t now where you get the “health risk” observations from- the MPCA certified the NIKE MSP-40 site in Farmington to be free of contamination.
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:51 am
Any I don’t now where you get the “health risk” observations from- the MPCA certified the NIKE MSP-40 site in Farmington to be free of contamination.
From here. The time stamp at the bottom of the page reads that it was last updated 9/2006. Obviously things could have changed since.