Driving south out of Colorado Springs, you’ll see a mountain that doesn’t look any different from the rest. But it hides one of the most secure facilities ever built in the U.S. Deep inside Cheyenne Mountain are a set of tunnels & steel rooms that once kept watch for missile attacks during the Cold War. Why were they built, and are they still in use today? Let’s find out.
Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.
Key takeaways
Here’s what you’ll learn:
- When crews started carving out the mountain & how long it took
- What the rooms look like inside & how they’re built
- How heavy the blast doors are
- Who actually uses the place today
Where the bunker sits
Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station is just outside Colorado Springs, Colorado. It looks like any other mountain in the Front Range. Yet it has a long tunnel inside that leads to an entire mini-city underground.
It’s part of NORAD & U.S. Northern Command territory, though it’s technically its own base. As a result, security’s tight. The site isn’t open to the public & there aren’t any official tours. Sure, you can drive by the entrance. But that’s as close as anyone without clearance gets. The rest stays hidden behind the rock.
When it was built and first switched on
In 1961, the U.S. started digging into Cheyenne Mountain, right in the middle of the Cold War’s peak paranoia. The site was ready for full-time use by 1966 & it was packed with equipment designed to detect incoming missiles…