This is the Tunnel leading to the orginal (now exploded) Titan 1 Operational Systems Test Facility on Vandenberg

I see urban exploration as the hobby of appreciating things which, decades after their creation, still manage to make us open our jaws agape at the ingenuity of the human soul. Often, however, such ingenuity is misplaced in hubris. Vandenberg was a logical step at illustrating such schizophrenia of the technocratic imagination – for it was at Vandenberg that our love of all things Nuclear and Ballistic began to take its true Frankenstonian shape.

In January of 2008, soon after my first trip to Neverland, the planning phase for a new, riskier operation was already being laid.  In the months that followed January of ’08, Scott and I would make numerous  forays into  Neverland, but – as it often is with our trips – we invariably tried to find things to do while waiting for the sun to drop below the horizon.

The endangered snowy plover (courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

After all, a trip to Neverland during the day would have been significantly more risky, given the amount of gardeners and caretakers that circulated on the property. On the other hand, gallivanting around an active military base, we figured, would probably best be done during the day. It just so happened, Vandenberg Air Force Base (a mere 30 minutes away from Neverland) was a popular haunt for the rare Snowy Plover (a cause célèbre for all well-informed ornithologists). And the Snowy Plover would make the perfect alibi for the Urbex Desperadoes we had become. On our second trip to Neverland, we added a brief foray out to Vandenberg to our itinerary (really just to “scope” the situation).

Although the base itself is closed to the public, certain portions on the far South and Northeastern side are accessible. On the South side, a sleepy rail station of Surf serves as a bucolic, publicly accessible beach – albeit closely monitored by Vandenberg Security Forces.  In the case of the Northeast side of the base, the Marshalia Ranch golf course is sometimes – though not always – available for public use. My frequent drives out to the edges of Marshalia Ranch confirmed that it, too, is a popular hangout for the 30th Security Forces Squadron.

A member of the Vandenberg 30th Security Forces Squadron at a weightlifting competition at Venice Beach (courtesy Vandenberg AFB Office of Public Relations)

I knew that the consequences of exploring Vandenberg at night could be dire; the “SF,” as the security forces of Vandenberg are known, aren’t your typical slovenly security guards. These protectors of Freedom carry M4 assault rifles and – as you can see in the photo above – can easily crush people like me between their fingers. However, I had strong reason to consider risking it – stupid, maybe, but certainly an alluring prospect. Why, you ask?

Vandenberg, for those of you who don’t know, is a proverbial Disneyland for Cold War era missile defense sites. Atlas D, Atlas E, Atlas F, Titan I, Titan II, Minuteman, Peacekeeper, Thor — you name it and Vandenberg had it. It’s a massive base, 250 square miles in all. But in the vast 3,537,441 square miles that make up the United States land area, it is quite literally a crumb of the total cake. Soon, it had become an executive decision: Vandenberg was my next step in a longer journey and goal (but an increasingly spectral and dangerous journey).

If Vandenberg as a whole is the Disneyland of Missile Defense, then the Northern side of the base would be the equivalent of Frontierland – the place where all of it was born during the Missile Gold Rush of 1959. Most compelling to explorers of missile defense sites such as myself, Vandenberg North was also where the early missile programs died by the late 1960s. In the 1970s Vandenberg North has been abandoned in place of Vandenberg South. Today, the bones of the past at Vandenberg North are ripe for exploration. The old sites had four decades to decay and, in the interim, they had become something of a beautiful sight of their own merit.

But getting inside the perimeter of Vandenberg North isn’t as easy as it seems. Though we had our alibi (we had developed a new-found interest in bird watching), we still didn’t have a way in.  All the roads inside of the base (and thus to the front door of our underground missile sites) were completely sealed off by sentry stations and road blocks.  Security forces regularly patrolled the roads. The sky was filled with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with infrared cameras. Admittedly, part of what appealed to me was the risk. Some of my recent successful forays had given me a brazen confidence. As part of the MacGyver Generation, I also reveled in the potential of being part of an elite few who had managed to infiltrate an active base undetected. Stupid, yes, but certainly alluring.

Again, members of the Vandenberg 30th Security Forces Squadron - this time training in the field, instead of lifting weights.

The decision started relatively inauspiciously. It began as a terse exchange via email on January 15 of 2008, soon after the three of us had infiltrated and photographed the Sutter Buttes Titan I complex at Beale AFB:

STEPHEN: Are there any underground missile bases other than Titan and Atlas that are abandoned? Are there any Atlas silos that are available to explore [in California]? I heard the Lincoln Titan site is filled with water, anybody have confirmation?

SCOTT: I think the Atlas sites are mostly in the Midwest. There are always the Titan IIs, but those are definitely far, far away. There must be some Nikes around, though…

ME: The first Titan test silos are in the Vandy base, but those are on an active base, as you know.  I still believe they’re accessible, but the risk would be significant.

STEPHEN: Yeah, I might be crazy, but I’m not stupid.  Invading an active base is beyond stupid.  There might be the chance of ‘official’ access to Vandenberg.  Jon, you’re a student at a reputable university who could make a request for access that might actually be listened to.  Or we could just go to the museum, but I hate museums. Was the minuteman missile stored in a silo?

ME: Well the thing about Vandy is that it’s separated into two sectors — the active part, and the semi-abandoned part.  The semi-abandoned part is apparently a popular haunt of bird-watchers, and parts (but not the missile base parts) are open to the public…

STEPHEN: Hey guys, I’m also a devoted bird watcher intent on seeing the silo parakeet in its natural habitat!  Let’s go ‘bird-watching’ on Vandy and track the rarely seen species into its underground lair! Jon, I know you’ve been looking at Vandy.  We’ll have to talk about this on our drive down to Jacko’s place (Neverland).  What’s our schedule by the way?  I need to start planning.

By February 29th, we found ourselves in an overflow parking lot near the Marshalia Ranch golf course. Air Force brass teed off within a few hundred feet of us. Stephen, in his Jeep, turned off the road and towards a pre-designated parking space. We began walking towards our target – the defunct Operational Systems Test Facility, which was the first underground missile base in the United States.

A map of the Operational Systems Test Facility - our first target.

Our “scoping” trip soon turned into a pact to give it a go if we felt safe to do so. We walked within the perimeter of the base and found ourselves within 100 yards of the OSTF. The three of us knew the smell of an abandoned Titan base well. The smell of Titan decay lingers in the surrounding air and – for me – it had slowly become something of an evocative and irresistible scent (what can I say, I’m weird).

As we ducked under the bushes in broad daylight we conferred over the final plans for the last leg towards the silo.  That’s when we saw a white sedan barreling down the road. Sure enough, it was an SF patrol, and he seemed to have known we were there. We saw the SF pull on to a dirt road that led to our trail. Immediately, we turned around and started running back toward Stephen’s Jeep.

Apparently, Vandenberg was teeming with patrols during the day, and a day trip would be impossible. Any passing car could easily evince us from the road that was directly in the path towards the OSTF. We breathed a sigh of relief when we arrived at the Jeep. It was then that we decided any future trip would need to be done at night. We also knew, should we be caught at night, the consequences would be exponentially more severe. At night, we couldn’t pose as avid ornithologists. If caught at night, we would become potential terrorist suspects.

Stephen didn’t show for the second trip to Vandenberg, but we found an able stand-in for him in Aaron. We arrived at Marshalia Ranch around dusk and parked in the overflow lot. The three of us hopped out of the truck and began the hump over to the OSTF – just as we had on our first trip. All of us agreed to keep our flashlights off until we were inside the missile facility. The moon had served as an excellent source of low-level illumination – and, together, we discussed what the protocol would be, should another SF be hot on our trail.

Then it came – this time as a white SUV speeding down the paved road that separated us from the OSTF. Aaron, Scott, and I watched the headlights approach our crossing point. We barely had enough time to drop to the ground and lay low. The car passed, and we continued across the paved road, looking like nimble roadrunners on a desert stretch of asphalt at night. Once across the road, we were separated from the OSTF only by a few hundred feet and a rusty chain-link fence. We squeezed through what seemed like a miniscule hole in the fence and began poking around the remnants of the silo, which had gone through its own travails to become what it was when we saw it.

On Saturday evening, 3 December 1960, a full rehearsal short of actual launch was being conducted by Robert Rhodus, the Martin Company OSTF test conductor. It was the ninth attempt – all of the other attempts had failed due to minor equipment malfunctions. The missile was loaded with liquid oxygen, it was raised to the surface from the silo, and the countdown began. The test was a success, and everyone involved was relieved of their duties. The missile began to be lowered back into the silo, where the propellant probe crew was tasked with reconnecting the hose to offload the oxidizer, but something went horribly wrong.

According to the account of retired USAF CMSGT Les Lawson, relayed to me via email, the elevator was lowered using the “down fast circuit,” instead of the “down slow” mode (which was required for a fully fueled missile). Upon realizing he had done this, the operator quickly switched the mode to down slow and the system responded by braking suddenly.

“The sudden forces on the platform caused the entire support structure to lurch,” Said Lawson, “The hydraulic reservoir located on the upper side of the silo tilted enough to spill hydraulic fluid onto the braking system.” From there, the entire braking system was compromised and the missile began an uncontrollable descent to the bottom of the silo, where LOX and RP1 mixed, causing a massive explosion.

Rhodus watched the entire event transpire from a television screen, about 1/4-mile away, and he “realized with some trepidation that, unlike the buried operational control centers, the room he was in had only 12 inches of dirt on top, not much protection from the tons of concrete that were raining down all around. He also realized it was far too late to run.” Nearby airmen were watching the events on television too – and the SLTF crew, not more than 1,200 feet directly west of the OSTF, saw the “entire elevator assembly, known as the crib, and missile launcher, a total of 160 tons of structural steel, come out of the silo, tumbling up out of the searchlight beams ‘in slow motion.'” In the years that followed, enormous chunks of concrete could be seen on the hills near the Titan I facility, and a complete reference system gyro was found on the Marshalia Ranch Golf Course, more than a mile away from the blast site.

The exploding remnants of the Operational System Test Facility. The 160-ton steel crib assembly lurched out of the silo. On our journey, nothing remained of the crib (which was likely scrapped), but the silo was still there.

Scott, Aaron, and I stood hundreds of feet above the old superstructure of the silo, and looked deep down into the abyss of the disaster area. Over the years, the exploded cylinder had filled with water – and that water had taken on an almost radioactive-looking green appearance, likely from algae that blossomed prodigiously within the stagnant pool. Dead animals were floating in the water. Across the silo, the equipment and fueling terminals stood. Their reinforced capstones made the gigantic, exposed cylinders look like the rooks of medieval castles.

The remnants of the equipment terminal, nearby the OSTF launch assembly. Though this particular silo didn't sustain quite as much damage, its cap was thrown high into the sky, leaving its top exposed to the elements.

It was the most incredible man-made structure I had ever seen in my life. I never had a true sense of the massive scale of a Titan silo until I saw it as I did that night – fully exposed from the outside, maimed by a massive explosion, and slowly returning to the nature it had once usurped.

The three of us squeezed through the window of an above-ground, derelict building. We found old technical specs and blueprints related to the OSTF program. In a back corner of the building, a cavernous passageway led to rooms that went underground. Scott and I fumbled across holes in the floor that once held data cables. We found an old HVAC system and continued through a T-junction to corrugated steel tube that resembled the Titan tunnels at the Sutter Butte site in Northern California (which we had explored just months earlier). The air in that tunnel was filled with the electricity of discovery and our hearts were racing in anticipation.

We pushed aside a blast door and looked down towards an antenna silo – fully intact and carrying a pristine and authentic Titan 1 radome antenna, complete with a canvas inflatable sphere.  This was what the writer of “Titan 1 Epitaph,” whom I’ve interviewed in the past , calls “a very complex system indeed… a radio-inertial missile guidance and tracking package representing, at the time, some of the very latest in technology and miniaturization in solid state electronics.” It was the full system designed by Bell Laboratories and a priceless relic that played a pivotal role in American history. The Western Electric Missile Guidance system (known as an AN/GRW-5 by technocrats) was so important that Titan bases contained two of them for redundancy – one of which could not be raised above-ground unless the other was lowered below-ground.

The schematic for the VAFB OSTF antenna terminal. Because this was a testing phase terminal, it wasn't designed in the same way that all other Titan 1 base antennae were configured. This is a truly one-of-a-kind design.

The pristine inflatable canvas radome of the Titan 1 antenna. I haven't seen anything in a Titan base as well preserved as this was.

Scott and I looked at each other. We had become so accustomed to whispering, that – at first – we hesitated to let out a sound. Then, in a burst of excitement, we hollered in ecstatic glory. A chest bump later, and a few words of congratulation was all it took. We had just seen what few civilians had been privileged to see, and it was sitting there for us to photograph and share with the world. We immediately broke out our camera packs and began a methodical documentation of the two underground antenna silos.

From the bottom of the OSTF antenna terminal, looking up.

The night eventually came to an end, and by dawn we were walking on the public road to our vehicle. We drove 15 miles to an abandoned diatomite mine and I laid my sleeping bag down to rest in the powdery mine tailings. The trip was a success, but Scott and I both knew that it wouldn’t be our last trip to Vandenberg…

It didn’t take long for us to return to Vandenberg – and this time it was decided that we would spend the entire weekend on the base – dwelling during the day underground, and returning topside at night to explore complexes and traverse to other sites.  Our first destination was the Atlas F, which is similar to a Titan II base in layout and configuration.  Upon exploring the Atlas F, we would head south to a grouping of various Atlas D and E pads, both of which had very little in the way of underground space but plenty of interesting accoutrements and panels to shoot.

Our visit to the Atlas F was a hurried attempt with a set time limit.  Our entire route was comprised entirely of overland walking, across miles and miles of scrub, ice plant, and sandy dunes.  Both of us were well aware of the impending sunrise; if we were to find ourselves out of range of a sufficient place of cover by daylight, then we could potentially be seen by patrolling SF. This was compounded by the fact that very little shrubbery existed for such a purpose – so the abandoned missile complexes themselves were our only hope of hiding. The nearest Atlas E was over a mile-and-a-half away and it was 4 A.M. by the time we exited the Atlas F blast door.

About a 1/2-mile away from the Atlas F, on our way to a place of cover, Scott looked over at me and his eyes widened. “Where is your tripod?,” he queried. I looked down and noticed it was gone. I left it at the Atlas F. It was 4:30, and I would lose about 30 minutes going back to get it. Scott laid down in the sand in exasperation, and I began my jog back to retrieve the tripod. I returned about 30 minutes later. Morning birds began making their sounds and the early signs of dawn appeared far across the Casmalia Mountains in the horizon. Our time was running short, and in hushed whispers of urgency we both soon became out of breath.

The next hour was a true race against time. On the route to our next stop, there were numerous active buildings that dotted the Vandenberg landscape. The fact was: Vandenberg North was not truly “abandoned.” Parts of the North are occupied by active Minuteman complexes, and Reagan had instituted a rail-based, garrison missile defense system in the 80s known as the Peacekeeper program.  These nuclear warheads were partly based in Vandenberg, and later became active at Mountain Home AFB in Wyoming.

A schematic of a peacekeeper missile being loaded into its launch tube {click for a larger view}.

Peacekeepers were underground missiles, much like Titans… but on steroids. Each of these solid-fuel missiles could carry 10 REVs (re-entry vehicles), and each REV was capable of carrying a MK 21 nuclear payload. Vandenberg North was pockmarked with underground bunkers that protected the Peacekeeper missiles on rail cars. When the boxcars were not being used, they were stored in the super-hardened bunkers. Buildings with electricity on Vandenberg North were likely related to this program – even though the Peacekeeper program was fully deactivated by 2003. Whether or not these buildings contained anything of strategic importance, Scott, nor I would never truly know. Looking at the siren-like warning lights on the building, we knew that we didn’t wish to find out, so we avoided these buildings as much as possible (unavoidably getting as close as 100 feet away in a few instances).

Our pace was quickening and the corona of the sun was appearing over the tips of the mountains in the distance. We were running out of time. A truck drove up to one of the active buildings behind us; if he had looked in our direction, it was certain he would have seen us. Partly to hide from the truck, Scott and I found an old, overgrown road, which I soon recognized from my mental map of the base. We were close to our destination, and a few minutes later we found ourselves crawling under a rusty fence (one of many rusty fences in this epic journey). We would lay low for a few hours while exploring the Atlas E, take a quick nap, and then continue to the most harrowing leg of the hike.

Sleeping at the Atlas E site was a welcome reprieve. When one is running on adrenaline, one’s bodily functions are in overdrive. The heart rate stays at a steady high. Sweating is more frequent, and body movements are twitchy and unpredictable. Scott and I had been continuously operating on adrenaline all night. When we reached the hard asphalt floor of the well-hidden Atlas E complex, it could have just as well been a billowing bed, filled with perfectly fluffed down pillows. I lay down and was asleep within seconds; I happened to choose a location that was almost directly under what would have once been an 82.5-foot Atlas E Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. I can honestly say, now, that the best nap I’ve ever had was directly below the domain of a nuclear missile – and it’s strange to say this, but I felt safe. I awoke to the sound of a Blackhawk helicopter that was fanning the base in patrol. Scott was taking a picture of me splayed on the floor with his cell phone. We got to our feet and began the portion of the trip that would be most challenging.

Vandenberg North is cut off from Vandenberg South by an impenetrable blanket of vegetation that follows the windy course of San Antonio Creek. There is no possible route across the water other than two dangerous and highly visible crossings. On our way in, we chose the railroad crossing to reach the historic 576th Strategic Missile Squadron – an area rife with both Titan II and Atlas D missile complexes. This required walking a frequently traveled Amtrak railroad trestle hundreds of feet above the canyon. We would return to our vehicle through a different route (which I’ll describe later).

A satellite view of the abandoned bases we chose to explore during our 36-hour overland journey. The red warning triangles were items I marked on the map to avoid - knowing that they might potentially be active Peacekeeper garrison facilities.

After crossing the trestle with little trouble (but a mere minutes before another Amtrak train had careened across the canyon), Scott and I set our sights on our first Titan II. We hopped another rusty fence (see a theme here?) and surveyed the topside conditions for a good entry route. Scott found an emergency exit and began climbing down.

“Oh Shit!!!!” Scott whispered loudly. Immediately after I heard him, a bat swirled around his head, coming from deep within the emergency exit. It flew around Scott’s face and exited the ladder-way. Scott dropped a small rock down the tube to ensure that any bats made their way out and then headed down the ladder. The space of the ladder, approximately 24 inches in diameter, was much too small for me to wear my backpack, so I strapped it in front of me and slowly descended about 100 feet to the bottom of the underground Titan II Control Dome. With a full respirator attached to my face, I felt like an astronaut, boldly stepping into the domain of an extraterrestrial spaceship. The view was incredible. Control panels and ceiling panels were haphazardly strewn across the floor. Rust mixed with benzene – colors that are so unnatural, they make the environment seem more artificial than anything I’d seen in my life.

Inside a Titan II control dome at Vandenberg AFB

Surely everything in the Titan II control domain was artificial, but one could see constant evidence of the intrusion of nature all around: Bats roosting in a place you couldn’t think anything living could survive in, water seeping , cave crickets searching for anything to dine on.  It was beyond surreal. It was unreal. The latest graffiti in the tunnel, potentially from other military men who had spent their R&R time on the base in the best way possible, dated back to the 1970s. Graffiti, overall, was relatively sparse – a welcome surprise, because all of the past silos I had explored in Colorado and Northern California came littered with a liberal smattering of monikers from multiple generations of explorers.

Like we had done in the other complexes, Scott and I busted out our equipment and began the tough work of illuminating our scenes. We snapped a few photos in the access tunnel and walked towards the acoustically designed Titan II silo.

Seeing the interior of a Titan II silo is a rare gift. Under the terms of the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) with the U.S.S.R., most Titan II silos were deliberately destroyed in the mid-1980s. Of the 54 Titan II bases built in the U.S., only a few silos remain unmolested. As far as I know, there is only one original Titan II silo that has its launch doors completely open to the elements – and we were at it. This provided an unprecedented opportunity to photograph the silo illuminated by natural moonlight – both from the inside and outside. We were hesitant to leave, but we knew that our time was running short, so we walked another 1/2-mile to our final site and the most historically compelling: The 576^th SMS Atlas D trio.

The Titan II silo from above - fully exposed to the sky, and illuminated by a combination of the moon and a handheld flashlight.

The 576^th Squadron of Atlas D’s comprises three fully intact bases, filled to the brim with original equipment, cables, and artifacts. There was so much to see that we decided on only one complex in the interest of time. We selected the only Atlas D site on the base with its original Gantry, which was easy to spot in the midnight sky. Much like the irresistible scent of a Titan missile, this symbol of our desire had become its own navigation beacon. With our eyes pointed towards the gantry, we walked in a beeline from 395-B (the Titan II that had just de-virginized us). During this walk, I had to stop to really look. The 576^th Squadron is on a bluff overlooking the entire Northern Portion of the base.  I used a brief break in our walk to look out towards the moonlit landscape, and to take note of our accomplishments.

The gantry of the Atlas D ICBM at Vandenberg AFB {click for larger view}

From my vantage, I saw it all – the Atlas F was more than five miles as the crow flies. With the full moon at its zenith, things that were miles away from that bluff were eerily easy to see – the blinking green status lights of the active Peacekeeper buildings, the shadowy form of the Atlas E with its diagonally descending personnel tunnel, the distant lights of active Minuteman bases. All of it seemed like a ghostly dream – much like those dreams you wake from, only to remember the most prosaic of details. And yet, seeing it all – even while actively involved in the process of exploration – immediately made me miss the trip.  I knew that we had about 8 hours until it was completely over, and I soon regretted the notion of leaving this strange post-atomic, no-man’s land.

“Ready to move?” Scott chimed in. He had just finished a granola bar, while I polished off my final orange. Even if I wanted to stay an extra day, I knew it meant going without food or water – a prospect that didn’t seem worth the extra time on base after the first bout of hunger set in.

We arrived at the Atlas D, and it was everything we had hoped it would be: Launch consoles; tanks of liquid nitrogen; lines connecting rocket fuel through snakelike arrangements underground; vast, lengthy tunnels that carried communication and power cables across the complex. It was a beautiful capstone to a trip steeped in visual splendor – and a sobering monument to the military industrial complex – something that even Mercury could even look down upon from the skies of the Roman gods and admire from afar.

Despite how much I bungled and bombasted my way through barriers and sentries in subsequent explorations, nothing could quite match the experience I had with Scott during those fidgety 36 hours. Neverland was only the first notch on a long-lasting relationship with pushing the limits; Vandenberg was a chunk. Soon, I would find myself in an abandoned skyscraper worth $118 million. My ethos would evolve even further when I found myself in a steel factory in Detroit, which was purportedly protected by a shotgun wielding wacko (who actually turned out to be a nice guy). But Vandenberg topped them all.

Scott and I nearly lost each other, deep in the base at 3 A.M. that night. Our phones weren’t working and we had separated somewhere along an overland shortcut to the bridge that crossed San Carlos Creek. For 20 minutes, I frantically tried dialing until my phone’s battery was near death. I rolled through chaparral and descried El Rancho Road (our escape route home) from the top of the bluff.

Down at a turnoff on the side of the road I saw Scott’s dark, pensive frame. We met at the bottom of the bluff and planned the final and most dangerous portion of our epic trip. SF vehicles were rolling back and forth across the bridge. The bridge itself, which was a skyway traversing the entire San Carlos Creek wetland, was much longer than we had imagined while looking at the satellite images.

Considering the frequency with which patrol cars traveled back and forth across the bridge, I indicated to Scott that we could probably make it about halfway across the 300-yard bridge before an SF vehicle would arrive – upon which we would have no place to hide. Scott concurred. The pinch was in, and we had no way out. We briefly considered going back to the railroad trestle, but that would have meant two more days of overland hiking – without food or water. We decided it prudent to at least walk to the bridge to see if there was a possible way across by going under it.

[nggallery id=1]

“Look,” I whispered, pointing to the utility pipes hidden behind the cement guardrails on each side of the bridge. “I think we can bail over the side and lay low until the car passes.” We tested the load carrying capacity of the pipes by going on them together. They held our weight. We had to start soon. It was almost dawn, so we both grabbed our gear and began running across the gray, cement skyway. We were lucky, at least until the final 100 yards. It was then that Scott saw the headlights of a distant SF. We swiftly hopped over the side barrier and lay on the utility pipes. The SF passed and we returned to the Skyway, on to our freedom.

We arrived at the Marshalia Ranch Golf Course a full 36 hours after we began our trip. We had traversed twice over chasms; we had seen the entire nuclear smorgasbord of Cold War America; we had evaded a half-dozen SF patrol cars; and every bone in our body ached from 16 miles of hiking on adrenaline. It was finally over.

Part of the guidance system for the Titan 1 base adjoining the OSTF.

I shook Scott’s hand in congratulations and started my long drive home. Halfway up Highway-101 (the road that had so often been my thoroughfare of adventure) I realized that the jacket pocket in which I had stashed my memory card had a hole in it. Every photo was lost. The trip, however, was not entirely lost. I wrote about it because I wanted to remind myself that those pictures aren’t the only thing that matter. If a picture is worth a thousand words – well, then – this particular collection of words is worth at least four.

Perhaps I look at it all so optimistically because of the events that transpired immediately after my return. Often, the biggest blessings come after a difficult journey. I arrived home that evening to discover that my father had a subarachnoid brain hemorrhage. I thought the very worst and threw on a new pair of clothes to fly up to Portland, Oregon. That week I spent in a hospital waiting room was the worst week of my life; by the time I left the hospital, however, it had become the best. My father had fully recovered from something that originally gave him a 10% chance of surviving. It seemed fitting that I emerged from a landscape of Cold, deathly war only to have it conclude in a true story of survival and miracles.

Additional Information

Pete’s description of the Titan 1 radio guidance system

Complete coordinates and details of all abandoned Vandenberg facilities

It’s easy to forget – at least for me – the proximity with which our current times coincide with one of the most monumental eras of our modern time. What I speak of is the era of the atomic weapon.

It was only 60 years ago that the doomsday machine was set into motion and Oppenheimer had managed to turn a desert experiment into a national source of pride (which ironically also became the very subject of national paranoia). With the atom, we had managed – if only for that brief moment before the Soviets had discovered the same route – to command primacy in the world stage, unfettered by jingoist competition.

An image by LIFE photographer Ralph Crane, from an unpublished assignment on ICBM missile sites in the 1960s.

But what really has me reeling is not the fact that I underappreciate its proximity to my own generation, but the fact that my own generation knows little or nothing about Nikita Khrushchev, Operation Crossroads, Nagasaki, or Hiroshima.

Today we take little note, yet the undercurrents of a post-atomic society are more relevant than they’ve ever been – they manifest themselves in color-coded threat levels, between the margins of network news, and within the very fabric of our modern think tanks. It’s a purely Hegelian wellspring that runs below the surface of American society, but in its seemingly diminuitive nature, it affects every aspect of our politics.

The satellite photo, taken by GeoEye, shows a nuclear enrichment facility at a military site about 20 miles north-northeast of Qum, and 100 miles southwest of Tehran, Iran.

The fact that Iran is about to have one doesn’t seem surprising any more. After all, North Korea is about to have another and it seems to be the modern day mark of Progress for any self-respecting nation. If not a deterrent, it surely is a bargaining chip.

What I saw tonight reopened my eyes to its true meaning. As a collection of ephemera, gathered together from various war department films, promotional spots, talk shows, and propaganda shorts, Atomic Cafe brings you into the mindset of the 1950s – a time when rapid expansion of the federal government led to Eisenhower’s sober warning about the military industrial complex (when a former general – a war-man – decries the unsustainable rise of a state-sponsered defense industry, well, one just has to listen). Isn’t Eisenhower the man who connected all of these atomic bases by a national highway system?

This film is true because it is unaltered and free from the commentary that taints most documentaries these days. It’s not very often that a film simply speaks for itself. Even the modern documentary is rife with shaky secondary sources and personal, impassioned, commentary from the filmmaker. Though Atomic Cafe has no qualms with establishing its strong stance, it’s a very believeable and naturally affinity-inducing stance.

As an explorer, I often find myself in the creations of that era. I did not live through that time. I have no recollection of what it must have felt like – or how my mind would have wrapped itself around the anima in the air. What I do have, as a humble explorer, are my experiences as an observer and analyzer who has catalogued dozens of these places (from the deepest of contaminated ICBM silos to the tallest industrial escalator). In the former, I had stood in front of the 40-foot-wide 150-foot-deep cylinder in awe of its size and demeanor of power; in the latter, I ascended the rusty escalator links to get a birds eye view of where ships contaminated by nuclear tests in the Bikini Atolls were dismantled.

Atomic Cafe reminds me of a project that has special meaning to me: The collection of dying archival materials – many of which are finding themselves vanishing in the midst of the sheer volume of their existence. And two individuals who have adopted this much-needed cause are Rick and Megan Prelinger. The two of them maintain the Prelinger Archives, a collection of ephemera that has recently taken the notice of the Library of Congress.

It didn’t take a nuclear standoff to destroy much our nation’s cultural heritage – much of it simply vanished because of neglect. For example, the Library of Congress says that only 1 in 10 films made before 1928 exist today. Thankfully, what is presented in Atomic Cafe tells us a little about one of the most influential milestones of the millenia. Where we go from here nobody knows. All we can do about these clippings from the past is talk about them, tell the truth, and make sure that these stories don’t die.

Stone Opera House Stage Door: Where Ogarita Booth Henderson and her husband, Al, worked with the Floy Crowell troupe.

Editor’s Note: What follows is what will hopefully become a series of articles from Mr. J.T. Colfax, resident of Binghamton, New York.  In late 2006,  J.T. found an entrance to a tunnel in his backyard.  Since then, he has followed the path of the tunnel, from the top of Mt. Prospect, to the bowels of downtown Binghamton. The incredible stories tell about a place little-seen by Binghamton residents, but which includes a history of prohibition-era rum-running, mysterious deaths, and … as you will see in this article … the transplantation of an entire cemetery.  Think of this as an early Halloween treat. Enjoy.

Bubbling forth now is the story of two cemeteries. One, the Binghamton City Cemetery, obliterated by commerce over 100 years ago; the other, Glenwood Cemetery, with a history of neglect stretching equally as long. They were five miles apart, but in 1907, their stories joined together when 1,330 bodies were evicted from the City Cemetery and carted by a team of drays through the freezing winter streets of Binghamton to rest at Glenwood Cemetery.

Mixed within this grisly drama, we give a heavy spotlight to the story of Ogarita Booth Henderson, a resident of Glenwood Cemetery since 1892. Her story will be accorded and afforded the star power to out-shadow the stories of hallowed, forgotten, and neglected lands.

The cemetery stories will follow in more precision and in keeping with this site’s emphasis on LAND. She is an inmate in a beautiful hilltop cemetery on a low-key mountain named Prospect.

The Rita Booth material that follows will be short on words for this reason. There just isn’t enough good information available. Her story will be interpreted here in the merest of nutshells. You will be soon bombarded with photographic depictions of articles related to her death in Binghamton, and you will see that none of them allow you to fully settle in to an understanding of her claim to be the daughter of Lincoln’s “assassinator.”

For now, go into the digital world of factoid presentation. What follows, in a series of photographs of articles, probably constitutes the best collection online of items relating to her story — and that is a shame, for it is not through hyperbole that I make the claim “best collection”; rather, it is through endless hours of searching online, and on microfilm in the Binghamton Library that makes me aware that this collection is both MEAGER and the “best.” I fully hope that someone makes me eat the claim.

Descendants of Ogarita Booth Henderson can be found to this day online seeking more information to prove their point. One can find endless references to people possessing THIS or THAT, which proves some point, but although they have the ability to troll ancestry sites, they seem averse to using the internet to SHOW any documentation.

And, with that rap on the knuckles out of the way, let’s proceed to rove through her story in this photo-voluminous manner, in which you will interpret the story your own way. I point out one more time, though, that Rita Booth rests in Glenwood Cemetery, which received 1,330 bodies in a disruption from the “old” cemetery in 1907. The story of that follows her story, and it is, as Twain would say, “no slouch.”

Because Ogarita Booth Henderson’s story gurgles online in such a way as to truly be a waste of time at this point (Oct. ’09), here is a lump sum nutshell of the story of Rita Booth.

Ogarita Booth Henderson claimed to be the product of a secret marriage between her mother and John Wilkes Booth. Below you will see death notices that include that claim, and also an article from 1885 which does not elaborate on its reason for existing, but includes a mention of her as John Wilkes Booth’s daughter.

Before the presentation of these materials it is expediant to provide a link to a wiki about the situation.

Click to Learn More

The above was not done out of sloth…but it provides the basic gist of her story and leaves us unencumbered to present the following unfiltered material, some of which probably contributed to that story.

Here is a small vault of information from its proper time:

A 1924 Binghamton Press article about Glenwood Cemetery’s history sums up her story like this:

“Mrs. Ogarita Henderson, daughter of John Wilkes Booth, assassinator of Abraham Lincoln was a pretty young actress when she visited Binghamton 35 years ago, while playing her first real character role with a show troupe. She suffered an attack of acute indigestion while here and died suddenly in the Crandall Hotel. She was hurriedly buried in Glenwood Cemetery and her show troupe moved on to the next stand. Her grave, marked only by a small pine tree has been almost forgotten.”

IN this way we can see that the three foot tombstone currently on her grave was not there for at least the first 32 years of her residency in Glenwood Cemetery. As for the remark that the acting troupe immediately moved on, I have found a notice in the April 6th, 1892  Binghamton Herald Republican that the troop actually extended their planned stay by one day, and at the discounted price of 10 cents per ticket. This extension appears in adverts and in a column mention.

Here is how the Binghamton Herald Republican presented the announcement of her April 12th 1892 death in their April 13th 1892 edition:

And here is how the New York Times presented it in their April 15th 1892 edition:

As for Ogarita Booth being shown to claim relation to John Wilkes Booth before her death, there is this, which is from seven years before her death in Binghamton. This is from the New York Times in 1885, and though the meaning of the thrust behind the article is not explained, this article does show that she was able to present herself without apparent question as the daughter of John Wilkes Booth to at least one New York Times reporter.

She was 26 years old at this time:

Below you will see an advertisement for the Floy Crowell troupe from April 5th 1892. Although Rita and her husband Al Henderson are not mentioned, they were among the 19 players in the production of revolving plays that promised, “NO DULL MOMENTS.”

And in every issue of the Binghamton Herald Republican during this period when the Floy Crowell troupe was in town, often only inches away from the show’s advert about their Opera House appearances, and including the issue that announced her death…there was also this advertisement for the cemetery that soon received her corpse. I have spent a lot of time on looking at Binghamton microfilm papers and I am not familiar with any other period in which the Glenwood Cemetery advertised so blatantly, expensively, or at all. The photo below is of an advert that was running daily during this period. This is shown at the end of the Rita Booth portion of this essay, but, those who intend to continue on to the coming information about the digging up of 1,330 bodies and their trek through town, should take note of the name HULBERT at the bottom of the advert. That is Hulbert SENIOR,..and we will meet his son at an elderly age when we take the bright lights off Miss Booth, and return to discussing both the missing and existing cemetery.

(Note: In the space of 24 hours hours we have received two new articles about Rita Booth.  Those and any subsquent materials will be added under the cemetery story below):

An article in the Binghamton Herald Republican (which is too obscured for photos) during the week of Rita’s troupe arrival in Binghamton details the Binghamton City Alderman attempting to pass legislation to abandon the City Cemetery and turn it into residential lots.

The City Cemetery was not only in disrepair, but was also in the way of progess. There were other graveyards, and all were cheaper than City Cemetery. But only Glenwood was taking out expensive advertisements at the time.

Eldredge street, where the "Old City Cemetery" was located.

The last sentence in Superintendant HULBERT’s advertisement for Glenwood Cemetery (above) is conspicous: “All orders for removing bodies will be promptly and carefully performed.” This is not in keeping with the usual mention of what undertaker took charge of a fresh body. Although it is in the realm of conjecture, this sentence is probably inserted into the advertisement to encourage those with means to transfer loved ones from that decaying cemetery with a threatened future to Glenwood Cemetery. Two of the most famous and prosperous families in town had already done so in previous decades (Whitney and Dickinson). Items up for discussion in town council meetings were often publicized well in advance…sometimes by bulletin board…and so it is assured by the large article (not shown), that it was well known the Binghamton City Cemetery was in a period of crisis; was probably not even accepting more burials; was under threat of condemnation; and was a long known place of disrepair. This was just plain “in the news” as Ogarita Booth Henderson, her husband Al, and the rest of the Floy Crowell troupe were in town.

Rita’s husband, Al Henderson, must be assumed to be the one to make the funeral decisions. All the early notices bear his name — and so do the articles about them signing together for various gigs. He would have probably seen the notices of the show, in the 4 days it was supposed to be in town, and also the suddenly added 5th day with a matinee and evening show. Some of these would have been interesting to him as a person involved in the show and how it was advertised. The advertisement for Glenwood Cemetery was always only a few inches away from any mention of the Floy Crowell show. If he and a non-ill Rita looked at the adverts as they arrived in town, they would have had within their vision adverts for Glenwood Cemetery, never knowing they would soon need the services of such. And if they followed the papers, they would also have seen the roots of the eventual abandonment of the City Cemetery, argued not for the first, nor the last time in print, but squarely in their time in Binghamton.

Lengthy articles can be found in Binghamton papers for a seventeen-year period showing much angst and controversy over the attempts to close the Old City Cemetery. Finally, on July 16th 1906, the council got their measure passed, and relatives or friends were told to have descendant bodies removed by December 1st. The city allowed the less-than-generous sum of ten dollars in expenses to families wishing to do this privately. Remaining bodies or bones would be removed to Glenwood Cemetery.

The enclosed photograph of an article about City Engineer Giles, and his task of staking out residential lots at the site is from January 1st 1907 (Binghamton Press).

Eight days later, F. B Hulbert, the supervisor of Glenwood Cemetery, and the son of the previous supervisor began the morbid task of moving 1,330 bodies across five densely populated miles — right through the business district.

Hulbert’s hired laborers had to cut through four feet of penetrating frost before the digging got easier. The remains were placed in pine boxes, and then stacked “with geometric precision” on carts drawn by a team of drays.

A January 29th, 1950 Press article depicts an elderly Mr. Hulbert standing over a collapsed tombstone recounting the story. The contract Mr. Hulbert signed with the City Of Binghamton stated that he was to be paid $8.50 per body. He was to remove the remains from the Old City Cemetery; place them in a three foot pine box; transport them to Glenwood; rebury them; and place a new marker if an old one didn’t exist.

Mr. Hulbert found that the Old City Cemetery had been “poorly administrated” [sic], and would end up seeing his work described the same way for decades. Records, “were missing and confused. Bodies were buried so indiscriminately that it became necessary to excavate almost the entire cemetery,” the Press reported. Later, when contractors began to build on the site, more bodies were found.

“Because of the inept method by which records were kept, hundreds of bodies were never identified,” the 1950 Press recounting says, “Graves were opened and bodies were found missing. Tombstones were found over empty graves.”

A city inspector named George A. Lincoln was assigned to oversee the exodus to Glenwood Cemetery. He kept a diary of the goings-on. His March 6th entry is peculiar:
“Partial body of adult. Remains were wrapped in a carpet and only about 18 inches below the surface. Reported to coroner and by him ordered to be interred as usual.” Mr. Hulbert recalled the incident 43 years later, remembering that a monkey wrench and a hatchet were found with the cut up body. Still, the coroner wanted this graveyard secret put back under the ground, albeit 5 miles away.

Eight days later, Mr. Lincoln wrote: “Body of adult–not identified (A clay pipe and rusty razor had been buried with this body.)”

Mr. Hulbert tells the story of finding 66 bodies in a common pit. These were determined to have been pulled from the Potter’s Field portion of the Old Cemetery years earlier to make way for Liberty Street to be built. For nearly two decades the City had been publicly debating the abandonment of the Cemetery, and yet, they had been quietly doing it all along.

Mr Hulbert told the Press that the City refused to pay the agreed upon $8.50 per corpse for these cases. He was finally instructed to place these remains three to a box, at the $8.50 rate. For the completed job, Mr. Hulbert was paid about $12,000 dollars.

Mr. Hulbert received many complaints for the state of Glenwood Cemetery. As part of his contract for the City Cemetery removals he was required to “set out in the corners of the lots trees and shrubs of value not less than $100.” Mr. Hulbert says this was done, but some of these plants were killed in a dry summer, and others were strangled by weeds.

“We’ve taken it standing up for many years,” Mr. Hulbert said of the complaints, “we don’t want to shirk any responsibility, but since the bodies were reburied the City of Binghamton never has paid a penny for their upkeep. For the price we received we hardly could be expected to maintain the plot.”

Mr. Hulbert, and many of his family members, including his father, who is probably the man who placed Ogarita Booth Henderson in her grave, are all buried on a steep ravine in Glenwood Cemetery. Their plots are a stones throw from her grave. Random pieces of tombstones can be seen dotting the ravine, some of them working their way into a brook, washing away into a storm drain.

(NOTE: Above are two articles sent in generously by Author Ron Franscell, “The Dark Night.” Click on the thumbnail to view the larger version).

The stage where Rita did her last performances.

Editors Note: Over time, newly found items about Ogarita Booth Henderson will be whispered in the comments below, where several updates already exist.