Sunday, May 17, 2009

Safe as houses: the Fallout Shelter in Kansas





It is most unfortunate that I didn't know this when I was writing American Colossus, because it fits so well into my extended discussion of dwelling in/on grain elevators.

In the 1960s, a certain grain elevator in Hutchinson, Kansas -- then known as the Far-Mar-Co Grain Elevator and today recognized as the biggest grain elevator in the world -- was equipped by the U.S. Army to serve as a fallout shelter, indeed, the biggest fallout shelter in the country, capable of housing an incredible 8,720 people (an entire town!). The photos above were taken by the US Army and placed on-line by the Civil Defense Museum.

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