But the Brutalist-looking architecture remains intact, a strange reminder of the tensions at the time. Courtesy Pifer’s AuctionsĪ direct conflict never broke out between the United States and U.S.S.R., and the silo’s explosives were eventually removed from the complex in North Dakota. “It’s safe, secure, and tornado-proof.” The missile site rises dramatically from the fields that surround it. “You’ve got Covid-19, you’ve got civil unrest-I got a call from one guy who thought this’d be a great place to have a server farm,” Keller says. Some calls have been from history buffs, some from entrepreneurs, and some from doomsday preppers, seeking a solid foundation on which to build their bunkers. Keller says calls have been coming in about the site from all over the country. The silos that once held the explosives are now water tanks, and much of the site is rusted and overgrown, but that hasn’t slowed demand to own the isolated, concrete hulk.
They looked a bit like supersonic thorns, eager to prick a hole in the ballooning threat of a Soviet ballistic attack. Sprint missiles were 30-foot-long cones that could surpass 7,000 miles per hour. You can put things out in the middle of a field and put a fence around them, put a ‘No Trespassing’ sign up, and people will stay away from them.” The country’s northern reaches were selected for a couple reasons: They were closer to the Arctic, Keller says, “but also just population. The property on the auction block hosted 14 Sprint missiles, named for their short-range, last-ditch trajectories, which were meant to intercept any foreign projectiles that evaded the American military’s longer-range Spartan missiles. Much of the site is rusted and overgrown. Others include a six-billion dollar pyramid in Nekoma that looks equal parts Giza and Death Star, and a nearby 30-missile site that is still open for tours today. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex, a network of missile silos across North Dakota. The for-sale plot, a 50-acre former missile site and command bunker, is surrounded by double fences and sits a short drive from other sites that formed the Stanley R. “The idea was that if missiles were coming in from the Soviet Union over the Arctic, these were defensive missiles intended to shoot down anyone coming in,” says Dave Keller, a realtor for Pifer’s Auctions, which is selling the property. In northern states such as Montana and the Dakotas, relics of the conflict are strikingly common.
Both nations were still locked in an arms race, expanding their arsenals just in case. In the 1970s, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were about as chilly as you’d expect in the middle of a Cold War.
It’s a Cold War missile site, and it’s for sale. The beige buildings are so prominent on an otherwise pastoral landscape that they could be mistaken for a 20th-century Stonehenge. “That mission is for you to define amongst the limitless scenarios,” reads the listing description.Half an hour south of the Canadian border, in Fairdale, North Dakota, a hulking concrete structure rises up from the flat fields that surround it. Edward and Dianna Peden bought a 34-acre missile base in Dover, Kansas, for $40,000 in the 1980s. In 2008, Drew Reeves moved from a former missile base in Kansas to a former missile base in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert to escape the cold winters. It comes with an underground space with a launch silo, escape hatch and nine blast doors but has no internal plumbing or electricity.Īccording to the New York Daily News, some people specifically seek out old nuclear missile bases to restore as residential properties. The property itself is a 20-minute drive from Tucson in Catalina, Arizona, and is guarded off by rattlesnakes and barbed-wire fencing.
“This property was once one of the most top secret of government assets and is now ready to fulfill a new mission,” reads the listing description. Some people specifically seek out old nuclear missile bases to build their homes.
0 kommentar(er)
