Really Honking Big Missiles

[damselfish]

While driving through the Everglades I spotted a sign for a Nike Missile Tour. I knew there was some space race stuff in the Everglades but my grandmother frowned and said "you mean the Cuban missile crisis?" I had no idea. My knowledge of the missile crisis begins and ends with the Bay of Pigs.

Time for a tour!



From The Anhinga Trail in Royal Palm I spotted a sign like this one about a month ago. Much as I love nature, I love missiles even more, so I wanted to do this. We stop by the Anhinga Trail to hit the restrooms because I read that there aren't any at the missile site, and hey, the sign is right there, the missiles can't be far! My grandfather and I arrive and take the turn-off, winding down little roads, following these missiles, until we get to Research Road. Which looks like this:



....Crap.

Four miles later, we arrive on time at a--



Is that building pink.



The only reason I knew to look for a non-military building is because the website said we were at a research center, but pink!?

Apparently this is a historically accurate pink for two reasons:

1) It's Florida in the 60s so it blends in with all the other ridiculously pink buildings we had.

2) Pink is a soothing color and this was a high stress job. This building used to be the command center/radar control. And it was pink.

Now it does science.

Basic history for those who don't know how the missile crisis went down: we were afraid of Russia, so we put up a bunch of surface-to-air missile bases to bring down bombers along our border with Canada because we figure any bombs from Russia will go over the north pole. Then Russia made friends with Cuba because Castro was all "Russia! The US just tried to invade my country and they're messing with me, pls advise?" and the US was all "fuck!" and they scrambled to station people in Florida. The middle of the Everglades was high ground and dry because it had been filled in for agriculture, and the government said "give us that" and lo, it was given. Hence why there's a missile base in the middle of a national park (it's been a park since 1947, this was in the early 60s).

This was all made more amusing because my grandfather's from Cuba, and our guide was like "you should probably be giving this lecture, then." She kept slanting looks at him as if to make sure she got it right. She did. Oddly, us and a couple from Ft. Lauderdale were the only locals there. I wonder how other people learn about this cool stuff.

So it's time to drive down range to the missile battery. We all get in our cars and drive out.



We're warned about the severity of the location with this replica of one of the first bilingual signs in the US:



It's kind of an intriguingly high stakes base: it was patrolled by dogs who were trained to respond to only one handler, so if a serviceman came across a dog he didn't know, he was licensed to shoot it. And there were only four people with clearance for the battery. One of them was a cook, who brought food to the people on call. Cooks with high level security clearance! Awesome.

Anyway. Everyone else had a fancy SLR camera, and I had my camera phone. I felt like a real putz. The Everglades is one of the few places where you see more people with Real Cameras than otherwise. One day, I'll be one of those people. One day.

Not this day, though.



I don't remember what this building is for, I just like the art, and I'm a little bemused by the graffiti. All the way out here, really? We're in the middle of nowhere. And I guess they're trying to make a message, but we don't use Hercules missiles anymore so it's really just a cool bit of history.

First we checked out the control center built into the side of the berm (I learned a new word! How often does that happen?) which I found really cool because I never see that kind of thing in flat Florida.



And there was a tree frog on the door, which is the first tree frog I've ever seen in person.



Then it was time to open up the missile barn!



Thanks to the high water table in South Florida, this battery and the one in Alaska (due to permafrost) are the only ones to use barns. Everyone else used silos.



Like I said, cameraphone. Sorry for the darkness. But that is a really cool, really big missile. And apparently they just got it recently so that was exciting. This site was only made a historic site recently-- before that it was a blight on the Everglades, kind of like the Aerojet site. But they made it historic, cleaned it up, and got a missile. Which apparently wasn't easy because we gave most of them away to other NATO nations.



Ridiculously big. Though I am also ridiculously small, so.

In short: there is a lot of fascinating, little known historical stuff in Florida and occasionally I am pleased to live here. Mostly I feel that way visiting the Everglades, though.