This story is reported by South Dakota News Watch , a non-profit news organization. Find more in-depth reporting at www.sdnewswatch.org .
IGLOO, S.D. – A former military munitions site with concrete bunkers now used as residences has become the source of numerous lawsuits, several complaints to the South Dakota Attorney General’s Office, a near-fatal shooting and now an FBI inquiry, a News Watch investigation has found.
The former Black Hills Army Depot munitions storage facility was developed in 2016 into the Vivos xPoint bunker complex that is now a residential community marketed largely to so-called preppers.
More than 500 above-ground concrete bunkers are marketed for lease to those who are worried about a potential national or global disaster or who want to live mostly off-the-grid in a remote area 8 miles south of Edgemont in southwestern South Dakota.
The concrete bunkers, which look like earthen igloos, are covered with sod to maintain a constant temperature for the military’s conventional and chemical munitions stored on site from 1942 to 1967. The town of Igloo was often home to more than 5,000 people during that span, including a young Tom Brokaw, a South Dakota native and former NBC anchor. The base and town are now abandoned.