fennec
Retro Guru
This is an interesting one to see from across the pond, sometimes I forget how much war infrastructure is still hanging around a lot of Europe and the UK.
Here in the US the majority of what you see is Cold War era military installations. I live next to a few NIKE missile defense sites from the 50’s, but there’s a lot of abandoned nuclear missile program sites all over the country and then still a lot of active ones just sitting in nowhere land.
That one is just hanging out behind the local Walmart. A late 50’s/early 60’s NIKE launch station, the fire control building a mile away is gone. This one and the one by my house were both equipped with 20kt Hercules nuclear missiles. Which is weird to think there were once 6 to 12 Hiroshimas in my backyard.
I have gone biking into that one but that is a crime, I do not have pictures.
Another one is just north of me and someone is trying to turn it into a bed and breakfast, despite the whole area being layered in contaminated soil.
And one way to my south is actually a paintball arena now which is neat.
But it’s one of those things you stumble across here still tucked into various corners around cities. There’s a bunch around Chicago, and I came across one on the north side in a park once like “oh yeah that’s right, the Cold War was a thing, we kept nuclear weapons to shoot down other nuclear weapons here”.
And then to be reminded that’s all over the place in Europe, in some ways that kind of cool how much physical history is left behind, because you just rarely see anything like that here.
Here in the US the majority of what you see is Cold War era military installations. I live next to a few NIKE missile defense sites from the 50’s, but there’s a lot of abandoned nuclear missile program sites all over the country and then still a lot of active ones just sitting in nowhere land.
That one is just hanging out behind the local Walmart. A late 50’s/early 60’s NIKE launch station, the fire control building a mile away is gone. This one and the one by my house were both equipped with 20kt Hercules nuclear missiles. Which is weird to think there were once 6 to 12 Hiroshimas in my backyard.
I have gone biking into that one but that is a crime, I do not have pictures.
Another one is just north of me and someone is trying to turn it into a bed and breakfast, despite the whole area being layered in contaminated soil.
And one way to my south is actually a paintball arena now which is neat.
But it’s one of those things you stumble across here still tucked into various corners around cities. There’s a bunch around Chicago, and I came across one on the north side in a park once like “oh yeah that’s right, the Cold War was a thing, we kept nuclear weapons to shoot down other nuclear weapons here”.
And then to be reminded that’s all over the place in Europe, in some ways that kind of cool how much physical history is left behind, because you just rarely see anything like that here.
