Entrepreneurs research ways to market, sell Cold War relics

Underground missile silos, vaults used for scuba diving, homes

? When Gary Pipes bought a decommissioned missile base site near Pleasant Hill, he wasn’t thinking about what the 15 acres used to represent – the Cold War, nuclear missiles and international unrest.

He was thinking about making money.

Pipes isn’t sure yet what he’ll get for the decommissioned missile base he bought in October for less than $200,000.

The land includes three enormous underground bunkers, where Nike defense missiles once were poised for launching at a moment’s notice.

Such Cold War relics are found across the country, and are now being used in myriad ways, such as homes, for scuba diving and for schools.

“There are a lot of dreamers out there,” said Ed Peden, who lives underground in a converted Atlas missile silo near Topeka. “And these are very unique opportunities.”

Homes, museums, schools

Peden makes a living finding missile bases and similar structures throughout the country, then marketing and selling them.

He said people from around the world have called, and they have many ideas on what to do with the facilities, such as turning them into a distinctive, climate-controlled home, a storage facility, or even a museum.

In Holton, the Jackson Heights School District has built a high school on top of an old missile site it bought more than 30 years ago for $1. It uses the underground labyrinth for eight classrooms and other things.

“It’s still exciting to people who haven’t seen it,” Principal Gary Herman said.

Near Abilene, Texas, Mark and Linda Hannifan offer scuba diving in an old missile silo that’s filled with ground water 130 feet deep.

The Titan Missile Museum in Sahuarita, Ariz., expects 50,000 visitors this year, all of whom can descend into the silo and see an actual Titan missile.

Near Saranac, N.Y., developers have converted an Atlas missile silo into a $2.3 million luxury home, complete with fiber-optic lighting, marble baths and a whirlpool bath.

Missile silos

The hundreds of missile silos built in the country housed Atlas missiles or Titan missiles.

No Atlas missiles were housed in Missouri, but 21 were built in Kansas. Eighteen of the Titan II missiles, operational from 1963 to 1987, were housed in Kansas. All were imploded.

Some bases housed Nike missiles, designed to destroy bomb-carrying planes. Four were built in Kansas, and three – including the one Pipes now owns – were built in Missouri.

There were also 150 Minuteman II missile sites scattered throughout Missouri, but all were imploded after being decommissioned.

The federal government has sold most of the sites to the private sector, but other sites are owned by federal agencies, state governments and other entities.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said many of the sites have environmental concerns, such as contamination from substances like trichloroethylene, a colorless liquid used to clean the metal parts of rocket motors.

Peden also has listings online for “hardened underground communications vaults” in Polo and Paris, Mo.

They were built in the 1960s as nuclear-war-proof communications centers and have more than 8,000 square foot of space. Each is listed at more than $250,000.

Future plans

At the land Pipes owns, each underground bunker has more than 5,000 square feet. There’s also an above-ground complex where the U.S. Army worked, ate and slept, and even a dog kennel.

Pipes said he doesn’t think any commercial enterprise that depends on vehicle traffic will be built on his land.

Instead, he thinks the structure could be used for storage because the enormous elevators that brought the missiles to the surface are still functional.

They’re 60 feet long and hold as much as 60,000 pounds. Pipes said someone could, for example, lower an RV into the ground and store it.

“RVs, boats, classic cars, you name it,” Pipes said. “It’s quiet and secluded out here, and the government put a pretty nice fence around it.”