![]() ![]() If all goes according to plan, the Air Force will transfer the site to the Wyoming State Parks & Cultural Resources agency in 2017 to ready it for public use, with an anticipated opening date of 2019. Now, it’s working to rehabilitate and recreate the experience of what it was like to visit Quebec-01, from the 100-foot elevator ride underground to the massive four-foot-wide blast doors designed to protect personnel if ever there was a detonation.Ĭurrently, workers are restoring and reinstalling all of the equipment once housed inside Quebec-01 to make it look like it did when it was fully operational (sans missiles, of course). In the decade since, the Air Force has carted away any remaining warheads and missile components from the site, filled the remaining missile silos with cement and disabled the underground alert facilities. The Peacekeeper was eventually decommissioned as part of the bilateral Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty ( START II Treaty). To help mitigate these risks, the military equipped each bunker with an escape tunnel-and told missilers that, in the worst-case scenario, they could dig themselves out with shovels.ĭuring the Cold War, the base served as ground zero for the Air Force's nuclear arsenal, housing the nation's most powerful and sophisticated missiles from 1986 to 2005. Although the underground facility was protected by massive steel doors and concrete, there was always the chance that something could go wrong during a detonation. Watching over a missile might sound like a simple job, but it came with plenty of risks. ![]() With a reach of approximately 6,000 miles, the missiles served as a towering reminder to the Soviet Union that the United States was prepared for all-out nuclear war at any time. Equipped with up to ten warheads each, the Peacekeepers stood 71 feet high and weighed 195,000 pounds. “The sounds and smells you never forget.”Īguirre and a team of crewmembers of the 400th Missile Squadron babysat the Peacekeepers, once the Air Force’s most powerful weapons, and were responsible for detonating the missiles should the time ever come (fortunately, it never did). ![]() “It’s difficult to explain the sense you have down there, but it’s a lot like being in a submarine,” Aguirre tells. Air Force and the State of Wyoming are working to capture every detail of the sole remaining Peacekeeper missile alert facility, Quebec-01-a Cold War stronghold with a chilling past. Aguirre’s workday started with a journey 100 feet below ground-a trip that visitors will soon be able to experience for themselves. Warren Air Force Base near Cheyenne, Wyoming. Peter Aguirre can still recall the musty smell of military-grade paint and stagnant air that defined his long stays inside one of the missile alert facilities built beneath the F. military decommissioned the last Peacekeeper missile. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 80.It’s been over a decade since the U.S. Headquarters is along Highway 240 - the Badlands Loop Scenic Byway - at Interstate 90 exit 131.Įditor's Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2010 issue of South Dakota Magazine. Surely all the little red buttons have been disconnected, but be careful just in case. Visitors can peer into the underground silo and see the control room where two-member teams worked 24-hour shifts. Most were destroyed, but the National Park Service preserved one silo and one control center near Badlands National Park as the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. South Dakota’s missiles were deactivated when the cold war ended in 1991. Only one was ever launched a 7-second test flight near Newell resulted in the missile landing harmlessly in a field. They housed 150 Minuteman II warheads that could have streaked 15,000 miles per hour over the North Pole and into the Soviet Union if the super powers had fought a nuclear war.Īs it happened, the silos were deterrents, and curiosities for ranchers and passers-by. Missile silos were once buried under South Dakota’s short grass prairie west of the Missouri River. ![]()
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