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Minuteman Missile visitor center opens in Philip, S.D.

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Denise Jenson
  • 28th Bomb Wing Public Affairs

Air Force Global Strike Command leadership and local community members attended the grand opening ceremony for the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Visitor Center in Philip, South Dakota Sept. 24.

The site protects two facilities – Launch Control Facility Delta 01 and Missile Silo Delta 09 - that were once part of a Minuteman Missile field which covered the far western portion of South Dakota from 1963 through the early 1990s, remaining operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year during this time period.

“Ellsworth has a deep connection to the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) mission as the Air Force selected the base as the third for an operational Titan I missile squadron in the late 1950s,” said Yancy Mailes, the command historian for AFGSC. “The Air Force accepted the complex in December 1961, but later inactivated the Titan squadron in 1965 when the Air Force replaced that missile system with the Minuteman.”

The purpose of the site is to tell the story of the Minuteman Missiles, nuclear deterrence and the Cold War. During the Cold War, thousands of Air Force personnel in Minuteman Missile fields throughout the Great Plains worked and lived around these destructive nuclear weapons, maintaining the operational status of the missiles at all times.

“For 30 years, the 44th Missile Wing quietly operated 150 Minuteman missiles, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for 365 days a year,” Mailes said. “In February 1991, the Secretary of Defense announced that the Air Force would retire its older missiles systems, including the Minuteman II that Ellsworth operated, in response to the changing world environment and a declining defense budget.”

On Sept. 27, 1991, after signing the START treaty in July, President George H. W. Bush addressed the nation and directed that all MM IIs be brought off alert immediately.

“It was the end of an era, not only for the Air Force and the nation, but for the Ellsworth community,” Mailes said.

While the site provides visitors an opportunity to reflect on a prairie that once held enormous nuclear power, the new visitor center exhibits explore the story of the Minuteman missile’s role as part of the United States’ policy of deterrence during the Cold War through artifacts, photographs, films and interactive plays.

For more information about the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, call the visitor center at (605) 433-5552.