Cold War nuke site open for visitors on Wyoming’s high prairie

M as in Mike

I as in India

K as in Kilo

E as in Echo

That’s the spelling of my nickname in the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, commonly known as the phonetic alphabet. You’ve used it if you have a commonly misspelled name, or if you find yourself on the end of a Mumbai-based IT help line. Help: H as in Hotel, E as …….

The alphabet is helpful but can be crucial in a military operation or if you’re a pilot on an international airline flight.

Or, let’s say the unthinkable happens and you are charged with the launch of a nuclear strike from a hole in the ground beneath the frozen Wyoming prairie. “Attention Quebec Zero One, we have some bad news for you and the rest of the planet….”

It never happened at the Quebec 01 Missile Alert Facility located about 30 minutes north of my house in Cheyenne. Coincidentally, that’s the amount of time it would take from missile launch in Wyoming to detonation in the former Soviet Union. On Friday, I thought about that as we returned from our tour of Q-01, now a Wyoming State Historic Site. Born in 1950, I’ve had nightmares about a nuclear apocalypse. But it’s been awhile since those duck-and-cover drills of elementary school and the very real scare of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

My father worked at Denver-based Martin Company, later Martin-Marietta and now Lockheed Martin. He supervised subcontractors building the earlier iteration of Minuteman and MX sites – Atlas and Titan. He did that job in Colorado and Wyoming and Nebraska and Washington State and Kansas. He dragged his big family along, which gave us a unique view of the western U.S. and fodder for future therapy sessions. 

I was 11 when he arrived home from work in Wichita laden with canned goods and water jugs and commanded us all to get down in the basement. That spooky, musty place was where we were going to ride out the nuke firefight unleashed by the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba.

The fear was real. History provided a better ending, thankfully. We avoided life as cellar dwellers or death as crispy critters. Two years later, we moved to Florida. Dad’s work with nukes was over and he now turned his attention to getting Americans to the moon.

Our family history is part of the fabric of American history. Maybe that’s why I was so anxious to take my visiting sister Eileen to the state’s newest historical site. She loves history, as do I. She is eight years younger than me, so we experienced those times in dramatically different ways.  But, as curious historians, we both know what happened in the world since World War II. The nuclear age began with the twin bombings of Japan that ended World War II. The arms race began between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. that many thought would end with M.A.D. – Mutually Assured Destruction. 

The western U.S. played a major role with Los Alamos and the first tests in the New Mexico desert. Many nuke tests followed, their fallout drifting over many cities, including Denver. We were all downwinders. Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant was established between Denver and Boulder. Coloradans built plutonium triggers there. It was the site of at least one major accident that created a crop of local downwinders.

According to interpretive exhibits at Quebec 01, the government chose the interior West as hidey holes for its missiles for several reasons: Low population density (more antelope than people}; distant from the coasts and possible Russki nuclear sub strikes; the northern Rockies and Plains were closer to the Arctic Circle, the quickest missile route to Moscow and Red nuke sites. 

B-52s took off from western sites on their way to their fail-safe lines. Many a missileer did stints in the frozen wastelands of Minot and Great Falls and Cheyenne and still do. You can forgive a young airman/woman from Atlanta getting orders for Cheyenne and saying something about going to the middle of nowhere.

But I live there and it’s not so bad. I spent much of my working life touring Wyoming on behalf of the arts. You might be surprised by the art that’s created in this big semi-empty space. The humanities play a major role in our lives. Thus, we spawn some fine state parks and historic sites, even have a state agency to oversee them. Wyoming State Parks and Historic Sites employees staff the sites spread around the state. They are based at Quebec 01 to conduct tours and answer many questions posed by the curious. The site opened just three weeks ago after the feds gifted it to the state in 2010.  Staff say that it was stripped to the bone after being decommissioned in 2005. The Air Force brought back some items. Former missileers, retired airmen, and just plain collectors donated other items, such as the VHS player located next to one of the launch chairs (the TV is no longer there). The space looks fine now but it still a work in progress, according to our guide.

There are entrance fees, as there are at most state sites. If you are disabled and use a wheelchair or a walker as I do, call ahead and staff will deploy ramps over the challenging spots in the underground launch capsule. An elevator takes visitors from the topside facility and its historic exhibits to the capsule. Step off the elevator and pass through the gateway that, back in the day, could be sealed by a 30-ton blast door.

For background, go to https://wyoparks.wyo.gov/index.php/places-to-go/quebec-01. The site includes photos going back to its building in 1962 all the way to the recent renovation.

Our history, and maybe your family’ history, is just a short drive away.