Warbird Information Exchange

On my trip out to the west coast last week, I was able to visit Nike Missile site SF-88 at the Marin Headlands near San Francisco, on the grounds of the old Fort Barry. The launching area is in good shape. The elevator down to the underground missile magazine works (you stand on this to take a ride down into the magazine) as does the mechanism to rotate the missile up to it's 88 degree firing stance.














Here's an overall shot I took later on that day from up on the hillside.





It's supposed to be the only preserved Nike site in the U.S. I did a google search and it looks like there's an abandoned Nike site just up the road from me in Alvarado, Texas. Has anyone ever gone to this site? How much is still visible and is it accessable?

-Derek

Neat! All the NIKE sites aaround the Seattle area (Bothell, Vashon Island, West Seattle) have all been plowed under leaving in some cases only disjointed cement stairs and handrails to and from no where, it's good to see someone had the foresight to preserve at least one of these icons from the Cold War.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

SF-88L is only half the story. Its great as it is the restored half of the SF-88. The other half, which is a long hike from Fort Chronkite, SF-88C was the control station for the launch site. Unfortunatly they have not restored the buildings and let them fall to the ravages of time and graffittiers. Enjoy

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Some people are like slinkys, good for nothing but bring a smile to your face when pushed down stairs.

Great pics of SF-88C. Thanks for sharing them. I'll have to check that out on my next California visit.

Just how far of a hike is it? I know it's on the other side of the lagoon from SF-88L, can you park somewhere close?

-Derek

Derek,

I talked to the owner of the Alvarado site via e-mail several months ago and told him I would like to photograph the site. He was receptive to a weekend visit but I have not taken him up on it. It would be neat to see what's still there.

There is also one near Denton, TX that is owned by the university...this site has photo tour of what is left. (and there is lots of way cool other stuff too. )

http://www.civildefensemuseum.org/nike/index.html

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Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
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Hi Zane,

Thanks for the link to the Denton site - that does look pretty cool. I'd like to see that in person sometime.

Check your PMs, maybe we could meet up in Alvarado?

-Derek

There are still a few Nike sites in the Washington D.C. area. One is located on the campus of NIST in Gaithersburg, Maryland. That one still has the underground bunker and elevator (which is not functional). A second site, also in Gaithersburg, is called "Nike Missle Park", but there is nothing left of the original site. The third site is in Laytonsville on the grounds of a Maryland National Guard base. Several of the original structures are still standing. There apparently are a couple more on the grounds of a nearby private school for special needs children, but are not accessible.

I believe there may be remains of a few more sites in the Baltimore-Washington area, but the three above I know about because they were in my neck of the woods.

Some very cool pics.....
when I was in high school, my Dad was based at Dyess in Abilene, Tx. There were supposedly four Nike sites in the area.
I only saw one for sure, it was about like this on in Frisco...... I wish I had spent more time checking it out.
There were also something like 12 Atlas F silos as well. One of them is a guys house now..... Most of them are still intact, the silos fill up with ground water, but, at least around there, they never blew them up like they did with the Titan 2's.

Abilene sites:
Fort Phantom Hill DY-10
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=32.580667,-99.717815&spn=0.00848,0.013797&t=h&z=16&iwloc=A

Camp Barkeley DY-50
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=32-16-55+099-56-45&sll=32.580667,-99.717815&sspn=0.00848,0.013797&ie=UTF8&ll=32.271132,-99.960008&spn=0.008509,0.021973&t=h&z=16

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Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
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Aw, you beat me to it Zane!

Here's the DY-50 IFC site, about a mile NE of the DY-50 launch site shot Zane posted:



And the DY-10 IFC site, it's supposed to be owned by the Abilene School District:



It's interesting that both Abilene launch sites only had above ground launchers - neither had the typical underground magazines for some reason.

Wonder who ownes the DY-50 sites and if they are open to visitors...

-Derek

I stopped by Nike Site DY-10 in Abilene (Ft. Phantom Hill) on the way to visit my inlaws for Thanksgiving. Both the control and launch sites were locked up tight with no one around. I think someone might be living at the IFC Site as I saw a camper/trailer there but since it was getting dark, I didn't have enough time to hang around...

Control Site gate:



Launch Site gate:



Maybe during Christmas I'll have more time and dayight to see if anyone is around to give me a tour...

-Derek

Over the last 26 years I've managed to visit and document about 2/3rds of the 234 firing batteries, primarily in ConUS along with a couple of the Hawaiian sites. Generally, about 1/3rd of the sites are intact and used for other purposes; 1/3rd are partially intact, ie, some buildings, the magazines, maybe a radar tower still exist; and about 1/3rd are completely obliterated. I've been to all of the sites in several defense areas, still need to knock off Chicago and most of New England but hey, it's a hobby.

There is what is left of the site MS-70 in Saint Bonifacius MN on NIKE rd. The main building is still there behind a fence and has some type of govt. offices. A couple of under ground bunkes are still there and 1 nike is at the ball park in town. I remember going there to the base alot when I was small, my dad worked for Honewell on govt. projects.

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PAPPY ch-46 phrog,endangerd species 40 years and still flying

Hi Mark, welcome to WIX!

-Derek