Missile covers along the lake


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Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: emolek (---.dsl.emhril.ameritech.net)
Date: February 29, 2008 01:11PM

My dad use to show me the old war "Missile" or battery armaments that are steel covers that were put in along the lake during world war II . I am not sure how many are left after the removing of the Rocks at Addison, but I was wondering if anyone else has seen these or would know where they are now?

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: WayOutWardell (---.dsl.chcgil.sbcglobal.net)
Date: February 29, 2008 01:37PM

There are some remnants of the Army's Nike-class missile facility in Jackson Park, in what is now the bob-o-link meadow. Most of what's left are just a couple of concrete stumps and manhole covers.

Pretty strange to think of the lake shore lined with anti-aircraft missiles.

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: chuck (---.176.244.66.biz.sta.networkgci.net)
Date: February 29, 2008 02:08PM

Ed Thelen has a lot of info on former Nike sites.

http://ed-thelen.org/loc-i.html#Illinois

Chuck
http://www.chucksphotospot.com

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: emolek (---.dsl.emhril.ameritech.net)
Date: February 29, 2008 02:38PM

What great information. I am going to forward this to my dad. He will get a kick out of it.Thanks again.

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: hipoldguy (---.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net)
Date: March 05, 2008 09:54PM

The Nike missiles were not from WWII, but the cold war era starting in the 50's. A radar site at Promentary Point in Hyde Park was removed in 1972.

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: davey7 (---.gyharch.com)
Date: March 06, 2008 04:25PM

The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore HQ is in a former Nike Base and until the mid 80s still had the towers and silos intact.

I've heard that the hill at Montrose was a base too. Hyde Park rumor/pre-teen urban legend says that the point is hollow and a huge fallout shelter.

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: SuperCFL (---.dsl.chcgil.sbcglobal.net)
Date: March 06, 2008 11:13PM

There was a missile site at Montrose Point; also there were radar towers in Lincoln Park. The Jackson Park site was called site C-41, IIRC. Part of the Skokie Lagoons up around Dundee Road, next to the Edens, and part of Fort Sheridan also contained Nike Hercules missile silos.

The control center for the Chicago defensive missile network was in Arlington Heights; my father worked on its construction. He said it had concrete walls three feet thick. He also recalled seeing the missiles along the outer drive when they would be raised out of their silos for maintenance; it gave him at least some feeling of security.

AFAIK there is only one preserved Nike base: site SF-56 outside of San Francisco.

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: adgorn (---.dsl.emhril.sbcglobal.net)
Date: March 08, 2008 01:15PM

I grew up near the lake in the 60s and used to go to Montrose Beach all the time. There was a radar station there with a weird shaped visible revolving radar that used to emit a sinister hum. A bit to the south near Belmont Harbor was the Nike missle battery. Every now and then (perhaps when the threat condition for invading Canadians went up a notch) they would raise the missles so they were visible. That was cool to see while driving down the outer drive.

FYI: There are remnants of a former control center in Addison at Nike Park (N41.92267, W88.02965).

Thelen is an excellent site for additional info. Check this out too: http://www.nbc5.com/irresistible/4872624/detail.html. Very good informational news report video about Chicago area sites.

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: telefrank (---.dsl.chcgil.sbcglobal.net)
Date: December 12, 2008 02:09PM

adgorn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
Every now and then (perhaps
> when the threat condition for invading Canadians
> went up a notch) they would raise the missles so
> they were visible. That was cool to see while
> driving down the outer drive.

Actually they were pointed that way because if Russia was going to nuke Chicago the quickest route was over the pole.

I'm also a product of the Uptown neighborhood and road by the base many times on my schwinn. I recall that some American Indian group shortly took over the Montrose base after the Army left. Claiming it as Indian land. CPD got them out.

As a member of the Robert R McCormick Boys Club I was on the Belmont base as part of a tour. What I remember most was the demonstration of the German Shepherd guard dogs. One of the handlers wore one of those VERY padded suits and they let the dog attack him.

Another cool site down the drive was the old shooting club near Diversey. As a kid I thought they were remnants of an old fort on the lake because they had the skeet shooters in towers that resembled old log forts.

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: b.a.hoarder (---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: December 13, 2008 04:07PM

The Army had an installation along Rt. 45 about 15700 S. in Orland Park, and the Army Reserve still has a maintenance depot there. Long after the missiles were removed the OP ESDA used the underground bunker for it's dispatch and command center, but I'm pretty sure that is no longer the case.

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: madbaron (---.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net)
Date: December 20, 2008 07:26PM

When I was in the Army Reserve, I drilled at the Orland Park site from 1990 until 1993. Used to walk out back and stand atop the silo covers. Army Maintenance Support Activity (AMSA) #45 operates the location now, though some of the land in the back has been sold. I remember two silo covers at the site, but the satellite view at Google maps reveals only one now.

When I switched over to the National Guard in 1993, I drilled for a short time at another Nike site in Homewood. That site is now a city park.

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: KatieW (---.hsv.bellsouth.net)
Date: January 26, 2009 12:50PM

My father commanded the Orland Park Nike Missile Site during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was born a month later. I have no memory of living there (on the site) for obvious reasons, but I did get to visit it when I was 15. However, it has only come to my attention in the past couple weeks that the Nike Hercules Missiles there, and at every other Nike Site, carried nuclear warheads up to 30 kilotons each...more than twice what was dropped on Hiroshima.
Nike Missiles were designed as a last line of defense against incoming enemy aircraft carrying nuclear bombs. They had a 90 mile range, and shot off fast as a bullet, 28 miles in 30 seconds. Once the rocket booster was dropped it became a guided missile meant to destroy any enemy aircraft and their payload before they could be detonated. The nuclear warhead insured complete destruction. Had even one of these been fired and detonated for any reason, the fallout, depending on the weather patterns, would have killed a quarter of the population of 4 states within a few months time. As bas as that sounds, it was still better than one of their bombs making a direct impact. The Nike Hercules program was outdated pretty swiftly with the advent of ICBM's a few years later.
At the time I visited, 1978 or thereabouts, the site, at least the officers quarters, were occupied by Park Rangers of some sort. I never saw the silos.

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: b.a.hoarder (---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: January 26, 2009 07:39PM

Thanks for the information Katie. I have lived in the area for over 30 years and had never heard that the missiles had the firepower you speak of. Your description of the result of a Nike strike is sobering, but I agree it would have been the lesser of two evils.

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: SuperCFL (---.dsl.chcgil.sbcglobal.net)
Date: January 26, 2009 08:25PM

I know that the nuclear warheads were developed, and deployed in some overseas installations, but I'm not sure that they were actually deployed within the continental US.

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: KatieW (---.hsv.bellsouth.net)
Date: January 26, 2009 08:55PM

I've been doing some research and actually, the roughly 280 Nike Sites in the US all had the Nike Hercules missiles, some also kept a few of the Nike Ajax, which were a conventional (not nuclear) missile with a shorter range of 28 miles. The Nike Ajax could be used to take out a single aircraft with a non-nuclear payload. The Nike Hercules program was continued on our bases overseas longer than in the US, as well as sold to other countries for their use, sans nuclear warheads of course.
I never realized just how scary that time was...having been so young then. I suspect the general public didn't know enough to be so scared though. It may not have been public knowledge these Nike Hercules missiles in the midst of all our big cities had nuclear warheads. My sister didn't know, she was 9 during the Cuban Missile Crisis and lived on the Nike Site. But then, my father never spoke about work.

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: marfair (---.hsd1.il.comcast.net)
Date: May 14, 2009 12:31AM

The army set up a radar facility during the 50s along the lake in Rogers Park between Morse and Pratt Aves. It could not have been classifed activity as I recall the public tours quite well. It was cool stuff for a 10 year old.

In addtion, there were Nike missiles in what is now a city park in Vernon Hills.

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: Lazer (198.147.38.---)
Date: July 13, 2009 11:46AM

I was at William Powers State Fish and Wildlife Area yesterday and I found a monument commemorating the Nike Missiles which were stationed there.

Photo Link:

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: adgorn (---.dsl.emhril.sbcglobal.net)
Date: January 09, 2010 12:17AM

See my Nike related waymarks at:
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM3F3Y_Nike_Park_Addison_IL_C_72
and
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM75K9_Nike_Ajax_missile_at_Cortesi_Veterans_Memorial_Park_Villa_Park_IL
plus this one
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM1TC5_C_70_Naperville_Illinois

Alan

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Re: Missile covers along the lake
Posted by: SuperCFL (---.dsl.chcgil.sbcglobal.net)
Date: January 09, 2010 12:43AM

Lazer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was at William Powers State Fish and Wildlife
> Area yesterday and I found a monument
> commemorating the Nike Missiles which were
> stationed there.
>
> Photo Link:
> http://forgottenchicago.com/forum/file/1/file=5/fi
> lename=NikeMissile.JPG

That's the business end of a Nike Ajax, an earlier model...I don't know if any of those were deployed around Chicago.

There's a complete Nike Hercules site preserved outside of San Francisco.

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