Our Visit to site 2 Eagle

 

It started out to be a rainy day. I had been doing some atlas F research on the web to see if anything new had been posted to
any of the site I usually check. I had remembered when I had contacted this owner before that he was a busy man and did
alot of farming and raising cattle. He had mentioned to me the best tine for him to have time to visit the site would be on a
rainy day. I thought to my self well this is as good as rainy day as most of them here in Nebraska why dont I just give him a
call and see what my chances were of visiting this atlas F that no one seems to be able to get into or knows whats in it. I called
him and made arrangement to meet him at noon which seemed to be a good time for the both of us for that day. After talking
with him I called my "Missile Buddy" Clint and told him he had an hour to get ready and to meet me so we could both go out
and visit this site. My friend Clint is an avid missile site guy. He has visited a few of the Atlas F's here in Nebraska and is more
than eager to visit any of them that we can get into. After meeting Clint we proceeded to drive out to Eagle Nebraska where
the site is located a few miles east of town. We got there arround noon and the owner showed up about a few minutes later.
We visited with the owner probably a good 20 minutes before he unlocked the gate to drive up to the site about a quarter of
a mile from the main road like most of the sites are. Oh and the rain had stopped probably arround 11:30 and didnt rain for
the rest of the day. We drove up to the site and the area arround the site looked like a typical site that farmers use to store
stuff that they may not want to store at there home in the front yard. There was 1 quantson hut on the property that wasnt
from the original days when the site was active. We walked arround the top of the silo doors and looked arround to see what
we could see. The site had been salvaged for iron about 12 years ago so we knew there wasnt any cribbing in the silo but
wasnt sure about the LCC. The intake and exhaust shafts on the top side have been covered with some concrete slabs so
we didnt see to much of them but the missile refuling shaft still had its grate on it and has been welded down to keep people
from falling in the shaft. After looking down the shaft and seeing that all the iron was gone we proceeded to walk to the
entrance portal , a few of the Atlas F's here in Nebraska the entrance portals had been dozed in to keep people out of them.
It was nice to see that this one still had its entrance portal. As were walking arround this tree to get to the portal I see this big
piece of concrete about 3 feet thick and prob 9' across and is round with a funny looking thing on top. I knew what it was but
couldnt believe that it was where it was. It was the top of the antenna silo with part of the antenna on top of it. I asked the owner
what the heck it was doing here since it wasnt in the location it should of been. The owner proceed to tell me that when the
site had been salvaged that the salvager had a big loader and had some how gotten this piece of concrete off the antenna silo
and then filled the silo up with dirt to keep people from falling in it. I was flabergasted to see it to say the least this being the
second site Ive visited in Nebraska it dosnt take to much to get me excited arround silos. We proceed to the entrance where
the owner unlocked the door the origonal door had been replaced with a much more secure door to keep vandels out. We
all started down the staircase to start looking arround and with most of the sites there is water at the bottom of the entrance
stairs to our suprise it was only about 9 inches of water at the bottom which was nice cause Clint and I had antisipated this
and neiter if us had any waders to get thew the water so we knew to wear and old pair of pants and bad shoes. THE WATER
WAS COLD...oh yeah very but it was worth the soaked shoes ,socks and pants to get into the place. First thing we notice
is that all the blast doors are gone, was a sad feeling knowing that they had been salvaged. The same guy that salvaged this
site had salvaged most the other Atlas F's here in Nebraska and he had stripped them down to the concrete in the Silo and
the LCC and taken the stairs to get down to the LCC. It was a nice suprise to see that the stairs had been left to get down
to the LCC. The stairs where pretty rusty as usual but they still had there hand rails. The salvager tried to get the stairs and
LCC steel but the owner said he wanted to have access to the LCC and wanted to keep the levels of the LCC intact. After
walking down the stairs we entered the 1st level of the LCC, on initial observation we noticed the hole underneath the escape
entrance and figured that there must of been something on the level 2 of the LCC that the salvager wanted and took it up
threw the floor of level 1 and threw the escape hatch to the surface didnt take much to determine we shouldnt fall into that
hole. The place was a mess to say the least but that is what ya kinda expect from 40 years of degradation. With there being
alot of areas that im not familiar with on locations of different rooms in the LCC and stuff I did figure out where the bathroom
and kitchen was on level 1. The pictures I took should say alot more than what I can say here. After looking around on
level 1 we went to level 2 of the LCC looked around some more and then proceeded to the silo area. We walked threw the tunnel
and before the silo there looked like there had been some areas before the silo blast door that were missing some steel
or gratting to walk on. We got past that and we all walked to the edge of the silo...Damn thats a big ass hole!! My
experience with the silo had been with a silo that had a crib in and you could walk around in the silo area. The hole seemed
so massive to me. This particular site has had ground water seeping into the silo so your could see where the highest levels
of the water had been at times. This visit the silo was full of water to about 25 feet below level 2 you could see where the
hole for the intake or exhaust port was on the silo wall and the water was just a few feet below that. So if a person wanted to
they could climb down the shaft on the outside bring a little blow up boat and crawl threw the tunnel, blow the boat up and
go floating in the silo....funny what things come to your mind at times..So we couldnt see the bottom of the silo which was
probably good cause I probably would of thrown up I dont like heights that much. After staring at the silo for about 10 min
and answering some of the questions the owner had asked we proceeded to exit the tunnel and exited threw the entrance
staircase. Once we were topside we asked some more questions from the owner about the site and what other information
he might of had that we might not of talked about earlier. The owner talked about the 2 wells that were part of the site that
where probably a quarter mile from the site. We looked around the site and found what looked like some of the old sewer
manhole covers or it was part of the sumping system. When the site was dismantled the power poles were removed from the
ground all the way to the country road save one that was on the site.

In conclusion the trip to the site was a very fun, exciting, and informative. I apologize for any misspelling and hope that you
enjoyed our little Sunday excursion.

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