The Deadliest Park in the World

An Atlas-F missile in Au Sable (O'Keefe.)

Four men sit in a room lit like a doctor’s office; well-kept and sterile. Radars in the far corner circulate with cold accuracy while the men wait for a call that they hope will never come to attack a place they have never seen and kill a people they will never know. It was easier for the operator not to be told the target- the 537 page Atlas base instruction manual had told them. 

The call never comes. The Russian tankers reversed course right before the Cuban embargo line.  One man walks out, relieved and with a faint but noticeable smile, through a steel 2,000lb blast door, up a staircase surrounded by super-hardened concrete walls, past two guards armed with .38 caliber pistols and into the crisp air. Though blinded at first by the October sun his eyes soon adjust to the oranges, reds and yellows of fall in the Adirondacks (Carr).

                But what business did this scenario have taking place in the peace and forever wilderness of the northern Adirondack park? The conflict between the United States and the U.S.S.R. permeated so deep into the nation that even the Adirondacks had a role to play in the Cold War effort. As we have said in class many times, the Adirondacks aren’t so different from the rest of the country, despite the exceptionalism we associate with them. Within the blue line, Riverview, Redford, Au Sable, Lewis and Willsboro all housed concrete silos 50ft in diameter and 165ft deep (Jenkins, 97).

A refurbished Adirondack silo, now for sale (Carr). 

 This clandestine development was an affront to all good philosophy, vitality and purpose in the park. The Atlas-F missiles placed in the Adirondacks by the government produced 389,000 pounds of thrust, were “85 ft. tall, 10 ft. in diameter, and weighing about 125 tons with a range of 6,300 miles that could, when fired from the northern Adirondacks, reach any of the major cities or military bases in western Russia” and could eliminate 10 square miles around the target (Jenkins, 97).  While these silos, which required 8,000 cubic yards of concrete to produce, were simply part of a much larger network born out of nuclear proliferation and fear, I find it inexcusable that they were placed in and around the Adirondack park. This action took clear advantage of government property, mocking forever wild with the most unnatural and destructive of devices, and making the park itself a target for preemptive strike (O’Keefe).
                 The Adirondack silos were all closed by 1965 and the only casualties that resulted were from their construction by out of work miners from the Lyon Mountain mine and their demolition (Bramen). What seems to be more fitting is that one of these silos has been refurbished and, though clashing slightly with the surrounding architectural style of exposed wood, is currently for sale as home (Carr).

(Thanks to John R(P?)utz at the Writing Center for the helpful edits.)

Works Cited

Bramen, Lisa. "DEFCON 2 in the Adirondacks." Adirondack Life Magazine. N.p., 22 Oct. 2012. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

Carr, Nick. "Scouting An Abandoned Cold War Missile Base Hidden In The Adirondacks." Scouting NY. N.p., 09 Jan. 2012. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

Jenkins, Jerry, and Andy Keal. The Adirondack Atlas: A Geographic Portrait of the Adirondack Park. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP, 2004. Print.

O'Keefe, Mike. "Atlas of the North Country: A Nuclear Threat Among the Adirondacks." All Points North Magazine. N.p., Summer 2009. Web.