At the northern edge of Vermont, a short dead-end road called Missile Base Road leads to a fenced lot with a chain across the entrance. Behind it is a place few people would guess exists in the Champlain Islands: a Cold War launch site that once held a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile, buried 17 stories deep and pointed at the Soviet Union.
A Ring of Missiles Around Plattsburgh
In the late 1950s the Air Force began placing the Atlas F, a liquid-fueled ICBM, in underground silos. Instead of siting them in the Great Plains, where most American missiles ended up, planners put one group around Plattsburgh Air Force Base in northern New York. The Army Corps of Engineers built twelve launch sites in a ring around the base, ten in New York and two in Vermont, at Alburgh and Swanton. The missiles belonged to the 556th Strategic Missile Squadron, part of the 380th Strategic Aerospace Wing.
Alburgh was designated Site 556-2. Excavation began on July 29, 1960, and construction finished on November 2, 1961. A historical marker beside the Alburgh Welcome Center, put up in 1963 by the New York-Vermont Interstate Commission, calls it the “First Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Site east of the Mississippi River.”
Building the Silo
Each of the Plattsburgh-area sites cost somewhere between $14 million and $18 million, and the Alburgh silo sat on about nine acres. The launch complex was a hardened underground structure, with a silo shaft about 52 feet across and a launch control center, designed to survive nearby nuclear blasts. Above ground, the site looked like little more than a pair of Quonset huts, a fence and a guard post.
The work was dangerous. At Alburgh, a falling bucket killed a 28-year-old worker from Gouverneur, New York, and at least three other men died building the Plattsburgh-area silos. Local reaction was mixed. Some residents welcomed the jobs, and others worried that the site made the town a target.
The Missile Arrives
In 1962 the missile came through town on a flatbed truck, and crews had to take down utility poles along Route 2 to let it pass. The Atlas F was about 81 feet long and weighed roughly 135 tons. It burned kerosene-type fuel and liquid oxygen, and it carried a thermonuclear warhead. Records for this site list its missile as Atlas serial number 62-12140, delivered on August 22, 1962.
Because the Atlas used cryogenic fuel, it was slow to ready for launch compared with later solid-fuel missiles. A small crew, reported as five men for the Alburgh silo, staffed each site.
October 1962
The Alburgh site was ready just as the Cuban Missile Crisis reached its peak. When the military went to DEFCON 2 on October 24, 1962, Alburgh was placed on alert along with the other Plattsburgh sites. Retired Master Sergeant Harold “Don” Wamsley later recalled a “bee hive of activity,” and said that he was told to guard the guidance control console until a targeting team arrived and a warhead was installed.
The squadron was formally turned over to the Strategic Air Command on December 7, 1962, and the missiles were declared operational on December 20.
Obsolete in Three Years
The Atlas F did not stay on alert for long. Solid-fuel Minuteman missiles were quicker, simpler and cheaper to maintain. In March 1965 the Plattsburgh missiles began coming off alert, and the last was off alert on April 10 and shipped away on April 13. The squadron was discontinued on June 25, 1965. By that time, the Alburgh site had been in service for only about two and a half years.
The Alburgh missile had a second career. According to one record, it was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on March 17, 1969, carrying three test payloads for the space program.
After the Missiles
The military welded the silo doors shut, removed the equipment, and turned the site over to the Town of Alburgh. State records say the town bought the site from the Department of Defense in 1965, while other accounts date the transfer to 1967, so the exact year should be treated as uncertain. When the sump pumps were shut off, groundwater flooded the silo and the underground control center. A volunteer firefighter and diver who tried to explore the flooded shaft turned back a little over halfway down, describing it as dark, eerie and almost impossible to see in.
The town used the above-ground site for storage, a machine shop and truck maintenance. State inspections in the late 1980s and 2000 found low levels of petroleum and other contaminants, but nothing above industrial standards. On September 6, 2017, the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation closed the site as “Sites Management Activities Completed,” with a notice on the land records requiring notice to the state before anyone disturbs the soil.
By the 2010s, the town was weighing what to do with a property that cost money and returned little. Officials once considered auctioning it and discussed a solar proposal in 2015. A 150-kilowatt group net-metered solar array now operates on the site, serving the Town of Alburgh, the Town of Troy and Alburgh Elementary School, according to its developer, Green Lantern Solar.
Visiting the Site
The launch complex is fenced, flooded and not open to the public, so do not enter. The easiest place to learn about it is the historical marker next to the Alburgh Welcome and Visitor Information Center on U.S. Route 2. The silo itself is a short distance away on Missile Base Road, where you can see the entrance and the chain that marks the old guard post.
If you want to see a Plattsburgh-area silo that has been turned into something else, several in New York were converted to private homes, and the Swanton site was stripped and sold for scrap.
Frequently Asked Questions
Was there really a nuclear missile in Alburgh?
Yes. One Atlas F intercontinental ballistic missile stood in the Alburgh silo from 1962 until the spring of 1965, armed with a nuclear warhead according to the recollection of a former crew member.
How many missile silos were there around Plattsburgh?
Twelve: ten in New York and two in Vermont, at Alburgh and Swanton.
When was the Alburgh site active?
The silo was finished in November 1961, the missile was delivered in August 1962, and the squadron was operational on December 20, 1962. The missile came off alert in the spring of 1965.
Can you go inside?
No. The silo is flooded, the doors are welded shut, and the property is fenced and owned by the town.
Who owns it now?
The Town of Alburgh.
Is the site contaminated?
State testing found low levels of contaminants, and Vermont closed the case in 2017 with a notice that the state must be told before soil is disturbed.
Sources
- Vermont Historical Society, This Place in History: Atlas Missile Silo
- The Military Standard, Atlas F Site 556-2 Missile Silo, Alburgh Vermont
- Seven Days, Solar Farm Might Launch at Alburgh Missile Site (October 7, 2015)
- Seven Days, Bombs Away: What Happened to 12 Former Missile Silos in the North Country
- Andrew Liptak, Front Lines in the Cold War
- Historical Marker Database, Missile Site marker
- Vermont DEC, Site Management Activities Completed letter, Site #77-0025 (September 6, 2017)
- Green Lantern Solar, Alburgh Missile Base Solar.
