Built in 1957 by the Strategic Air Command out of Omaha, the concrete bunker was doubled in size in 1962 in reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Gazing up at the Holyoke Range one wouldn't realize that they were looking at the location of one of the remnants of the cold war.
Buried deep within the side of Bare Mountain lies ‘The Bunker.’ Built in 1957 by the Strategic Air Command out of Omaha, the concrete bunker was doubled in size in 1962 in reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Once a top-secret facility, the bunker was eventually shut down and handed over to the Federal Reserve who used the temperature-controlled space for non-negotiable paper storage. Eventually even the Feds pulled out and abandoned the property in 1972. In 1989 the property was listed with a Realtor and the current owner’s, Amherst College, purchased the property as a storage facility for their own growing library.
The Bunker, as it has become known throughout the area, has had many stories surrounding it. When it was increased in size in 1962, every cement truck in the valley was pressed into service to pour its one and half foot thick walls. Amherst College’s project manager Aaron Hayden tells a story that was told to him by one of those cement truck drivers. The driver said that upon reaching the gate the sentry would hand the driver a map of where to take his load of concrete. He was told to go directly to that spot and unload, that he was not to look left or right, but to dump his concrete and then get out as quickly as possible. The driver stated that that is exactly what they all did. They didn’t dare look around; they simply drove in, dropped their concrete and then left as quickly as they could.
There seemed to be that same theme of ‘quick compliance’ to many of the stories related by Hayden. Electricians and plumbers were greeted at the guard house and escorted through tunnels made of canvas that blocked their view of any of their surroundings. They were taken to their workspace, also surrounded by canvas and as a guard watched over them, they would do their job. Each workman was allowed 3 days on the job. Once their time was up they were escorted from the premises never to be asked back to the location for another day’s work. The constant turnover insured that no one workman saw more than just a small area of the facility before they were released.
Even passers-by were drawn into the mystery of what was happening inside Bare Mountain. One visitor related his story to Hayden, saying that he had experienced a flat tire while driving over the mountain one night. As the gentleman proceeded to change his tire he was soon approached by a car load of guards from the facility who insisted that he ‘keep moving.’ Explaining his situation he was told to get in the back of the sentry’s car. In short order the man was driven down the mountain, dropped at the side of the road and told to wait there. Within a half hour the sentry returned -- he had changed the man’s tire and driven the man’s car back down the mountain to where the driver had been left. It was clear that loitering, even for accidental reasons, would not be tolerated on the mountain.
Today the facility still draws a good deal of interest. It’s not every day you get to go inside such an iconic symbol of such a historic time in this country. Currently, the bunker is closed to the general public; however, the college does conduct tours for their alumni during homecoming weekend.
The bunker also now houses the repository for the Five Colleges, however, visitors are not allowed. Students can place their requests with their college’s library for the books or documents they need that are housed inside the mountain and the staff will deliver the books from the mountain to their college’s facility.
Although few remnants of the military’s use of the bunker remains, there are still those snippets of days gone by that can be seen throughout the building; Intriguing glimpses into what was one of the most secretive places in the United States for many years.