Ellsworth Air Force Base, Delta Flight, 10 mile radius around Exit 127 off Interstate 90, Interior, Jackson County, SD

Significance: Ellsworth Air Force Base, Delta Flight (Minuteman II ICBM) is an important icon of the American participation in the arms race and the Cold War. When the Soviet Union began to expand its boundaries and increase its military strength after World War II, many American leaders ascribed these activities to a deep-seated and innately hostile Soviet expansionism which would not end until the American way of life had been destroyed, and the entire world had been converted to Communism. The United States planned to deter Communist aggression by threatening immediate and massive retaliation using nuclear weapons. As the nation mobilized to implement this strategy during the 1950s, the United States Air Force was called upon to develop and deploy an entirely new type of weapon capable of delivering a thermonuclear warhead to targets half a world away. This weapon was the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM); and the Minuteman ICBM weapon system was the culmination of that effort.

Survey number: HAER SD-50

Building/structure dates: 1961-1963 Initial Construction

Building/structure dates: 1991-1993 Subsequent Work

air bases military art and science weapons industry cold war nuclear weapons industry arms race missiles interior ellsworth ellsworth air force base delta delta flight radius mile radius exit interstate jackson county air force sports racing south dakota blackhawk roise and company hess historic american engineering record john f lauber robert lyon lysa wegman french photo ultra high resolution high resolution air force base library of congress

1969 - 1980

Library of Congress

http://www.loc.gov/

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