Having learned of a decommissioned Nike missile base in my neighborhood, I was curious about the Nike project. It was a pretty big effort. The first Nike missiles had a 25 mile range, the later ones up to 100 mile range. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Nike

The base sites came in pairs, one for command and control, the other for launch. From 1960-1966, the missile installation near us protected Bergstrom AFB. Having sent these pictures to friends, I'm amazed at how much unwritten information (and misinformation) is still circulating. For example, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, our base armed the missiles three times. It's said that the launch codes were kept under a mattress.

One day while on Google maps, I zoomed in an was amazed to see a missile still there. It's a monument, lying on it's side. The misinformation is that our missiles were in silos. Best I can tell, Nikes were always launched from the surface, not from below surface.

Fitting post for this forum as the early ones used tubes. 25 miles was what was said but they did a bit better IFRC. WSPG 52/53.

Yes, I noticed there are many "abandoned Missile Silos"
in Kansas while looking at the map.

http://darkkansas.com/abandonments.php

I was stationed at the Nike Hercules site at Dyess AFB (Abilene, TX) from 1961 until 1963. The launching area was photographed for the 1963 Abilene phone book. As you can see, the missile is above ground surrounded by large berms. The missiles were stored horizontally and elevated for firing.

Ed - that picture just made me laugh out loud.

A phone book, with a missile on the cover, and the legend "See the new classified index."

Thank you for posting the pictures and information. That would explain why my brother and I never found anything that seemed like silos when we explored an old base/airport in Illinois northwest of Chicago about 15 years ago.

There used to be a base near Denton Texas. When they closed it NTSU took over the property. I took an electronics course and my instructor had a bunch of "surplus" gear and parts that came from that base.

Missile silos were set up in shotgun patterns around Air Force bases for servicing purposes. There were plenty Titan sites around Plattsburgh Air Force base near me before it was closed, two are actually here in Vermont. Kansas/Missouri area has plenty, in Kansas I know there are lots around Fort Riley. One of my very favorite 1990s Internet sites was an abandoned silo tour- http://triggur.org/silo/ and on my many trips through there I hear tell about kids still getting into them.

Here's another more recent site- http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2010/03 ... sile-silo/

John H.

There were two massive steel doors at Macaurther and I-635 area in Dallas (by Northlake) Built in the '70s, a friend who grew up here said that the two apartment complexes at Valley Ranch that sit on small hills are actually perched upon dirt from the excavation of the silo. So, whatever it was, it was really big.

I grew up near one. They weren't in vertical silos like an ICBM. They were in "batteries" that were more like a horizontal bunker with large metal doors on top. Several were stored in them. The doors would open and a launcher with a missile on it would extend outside. I can remember going past it and sometimes seeing a missile out on a launcher pointed into the sky. The radars were on top of a hill nearby. You could see them from our house. That and our neighbor's nephew buzzing the house at about 100' at probably 600 knots and in full afterburner in his F-8 Crusader. I was 4 or 5 years old at the time and distinctly remember the gray streak with flame coming out of the tail flashing over the house and gravel from the driveway bouncing almost as high as my head. It wasn't uncommon to hear sonic booms (unrelated to the nephew). This was in the early to mid '60s in the NYC metro area at the height of Cold War tensions.

You got anything else on this Mescalero - that about a block away from me

I flew in and out of Torrance, CA Airport almost every day in the early/mid 60s, and you flew right over an installation of 3 Nike missiles right at the end of 29R. A little disconcerting when they were pointing almost straight up. Had they lit the fuse when you were passing overhead, at about 50', the center one would have come right through the floor. So far as I know all Nike sites were on open ground.

They were all white like the one in macrohenry's top pic, but deployed side by side looking not unlike the cover of the telephone book. Right up the road, so to speak, was the Standard Oil refinery in El Segundo, and LAX, with Douglas aircraft, and North American Aviation, where they were building F-100s. The south Bay area, around LA had Lots of prime targets, and plenty of Nike's to defend them.

Here is a link to a series of photos that reveal the remaining buildings that once stored nuclear missiles. http://www.27east.com/photo-gallery/article.cfm/225853#11698

This is on the eastern end of long island, ny. The missiles were aimed at the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
I live next door to this property.

I live next to a former Air Force Base and there was a Nike site out here in the country. It has been converted into a special education center. I cannot really fathom how an abandoned Army missile site is ideal for a special needs student facility, but there it is.

The Nike site northeast of Abilene Texas was converted into a "Job Corps Training Center" in the early 1970s. The Integrated Fire Control (IFC) area had barracks, mess hall, recreation area, and an informal tennis court all surrounded by a secure fence and guard shacks. Not a bad place for a minimum security prison. The launching area was located about a half-mile from the IFC area and didn't have much in the way of useful buildings. The missile crew's living quarters were in the IFC area.

Where do you live on long island, near Orient Point or near
Montauk?
If near Orient did you know Ralph Williams? He was a really
good friend of mine.

One Nike site just north of San Francisco has been "restored" as a working replica, complete with functioning elevators that lift dummy missiles from underground storage:

http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/tel ... ended.html

--Bob

LA-94 (command center) is atop Magic Mountain (real name) overlooking Santa Clarita. Been there a dozen times exploring. (The launch center was at the base of the mountain) Here is what looks line a rocket engine exhaust tube that exits a right turn over the cliff. Two huge water towers above supplies water for cooling through a ring of nozzles. It's been covered but over the years vandals have removed part of the cover.


http://nikeherculesla94saugus.homestead ... uniar.html

Looking down there is the Sable Ranch in Santa Clarita where they film the game show Wipeout.

We were chased out when I tried to get pictures from ground level.

http://www.ftmac.org/lanike3.htm

They've reserved one at "White Point", at PV (Palos Verde Peninsula):

http://fortwiki.com/White_Point_Military_Reservation
http://nikemissile.org/white_point_site_la.shtml

This one use to house gun batteries, then was refitted with missiles, when bombers replaced battleships, as the primary threat.

btw: Don't go scuba diving, down on the beach, of the same name. It tastes like sulfur. Found out later what that means. At least in populated areas.

Several of the bases in New York City were turned over to the National Park Service and their web site has pictures of the missiles and the early radio and radar equipment http://www.nps.gov/gate/historyculture/places.htm
Don