Forgotten History of the Cold War: SD Minutemen

During the Cold War, Dwight Eisenhower developed the idea of a “military-industrial complex” where the government, some corporations, and the military work together to further military technological advancements by providing each other with different things such as money, jobs, and support. This became an issue since the idea of a “military-industrial complex” didn’t include or focus on what the public interest in furthering military technological advancements was or if they should work with the public to further those interests. While this happened at the national level with the nuclear arms race with the government getting more money put into military spending, it also affected some of the public by placing nuclear silos on private land. This occurred because of the need to be ready to launch nuclear missile silos to be within the U.S., but also be safe from enemy attacks, which made the Midwest a perfect place to house them (Heefne). These missile sites were called Minutemen, and on the west side of South Dakota, there ended up being 150 different sites that were constructed and used over the course of the Cold War (Heefne). With that many sites, the government had a plan on where they wanted each of them located, which ended up being on private citizen-owned land that if it wasn’t given to them via purchase, they used emanate domain to get (Heefne). By getting the land this way, the government made some landowners mad, since they were willing to give some of their land to help with the war cause, but didn’t understand why the government needed certain spots of land and wouldn’t budge on moving them even if it was in an inconvenient location for the landowner (Heefne). Later on, when the Cold War ended, the Minutemen in South Dakota were chosen as some of the missiles that the government would disarm to appease the START Treaty which while the government couldn’t care less about that decision, it ended up impacting the local landowners in South Dakota who were near land that held the missiles (Heefne). The original method in which the government wanted to disarm the Minutemen sites involved the land going back into government hands and the silo sites being destroyed by TNT. This made some landowners mad, since once again, the government wasn’t considering them a factor in getting rid of the missile sites at all since they should have some way to try and reclaim the site land if it was theirs to begin with along with their fear that the TNT disposal method could impact the local water table negatively (Heefne). In this case, the government actually worked with some landowners to allow them not only some potential to get their land back but also to show them that the TNT wouldn’t affect the local water table (Heefne). Despite that being a good plan by the government, they should have thought about what the local people get and need instead of just what would be best for the military and the Cold War. 

I think that the Minutemen missile site was preserved to tell the Cold War story not just in national terms but also local ones. This is because while the NPS site does tend to tell more of a broad nationalistic look at the Cold War rather than the local stories, it still to me, tells a local story just based on where it’s located. When I grew up in South Dakota, I would hear about how in the 80’s you could look off of I-90 and see many different missile sites, which made me realize that the Cold War wasn’t just a far away nuclear arms race but a conflict that involved my own state. So just having a Minutemen site preserved and open to the public that is within driving distance shows that the war wasn’t just international but domestic as well, in places where you never thought the Cold War would have an impact.