![]() The U.S. built 72 Atlas-F missile silos - from upstate New York to Texas - in the early 1960s as the arms race with the Soviet Union heated up. The site was eventually cleared environmentally, but the owner figured he didn’t have the time or the resources to continue the project, Figueroa said.Ĭompared to some of the other sites in Nebraska, the York silo is in relatively good shape. The owner spent a couple of years renovating the space, including draining a foot of condensation inside the command center and insulating the first level with spray foam.įor a good portion of the past two decades, the Army Corps of Engineers leased the property after high levels of TCE, a chemical found in degreasers, was discovered in nearby groundwater. ![]() “When he got it, it was just a decaying relic of the Cold War.” “He had always wanted some kind of underground home,” Figueroa said. The owner, who wished to remain anonymous, had purchased it in 1998 in advance of Y2K. The property’s out-of-state owner was looking to sell. And the silo itself, with two massive, 50-ton launch doors, can be accessed via a tunnel.įigueroa, who works alongside his wife, Polly, got a phone call about the silo three months ago from a broker in Kansas. Mammoth 2,000-ton steel blast doors - five in all - and an escape hatch take you back to a time when fears of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union were very real. Four 500-gallon water tanks in the silo are fed by one of two on-site water wells. A wood stove and electric furnace will keep you warm, if needed. It’s refreshingly cool when you first enter the underground complex. The first floor of the cylindrical control center, about 30 feet underground and accessed via a ground-level metal door, is completely livable and has running water, electricity and a working toilet and septic system. It’s what’s below the surface that packs a punch. Corn in the adjacent fields is nearly waist high and the healthy green of late June. On the surface, the silo’s circular cap - about 52 feet across with two 50-ton launch doors - looks like the lonely foundation of a grain bin long since removed. “It’s an incredible piece of military history,” said Mike Figueroa, a realtor with BancWise Realty in Lincoln. 34, the York site was the last of the 12 to be decommissioned in April 1965, and soon they were sold to the public.
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