Paaverud will ask the 2007 North Dakota Legislature to match that total, while raising the remaining $500,000 through private or other sources.įollowing a tour of the facilities this past week, Vigesaa is convinced the project is vital to the state's history. The agency has raised $250,000, through a Save America's Treasures grant. The state agency is attempting to raise $1 million by December 2007 for the project. Paaverud, now director of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, is trying to preserve Oscar-Zero, the Launch Control Facility north of Cooperstown, and November-33, the missile silo two miles east of the city. The State Historical Society of North Dakota is facing a challenge - raising $1 million by the end of 2007 to convert two missile facilities near Cooperstown into State Historical Sites. "The loss of the military load, as well as the decline in the number of rural customers and changes in the industry, eventually led us to propose that to the membership," said Olson, who now serves as energy services manager at Nodak. Sheyenne Valley became part of Nodak Electric Cooperative in 2001, less than three years after the closing of the missile wing facilities. However, the missile sites represented only 3 percent of the cooperative's annual sales of $26 million, according to a report in 1995. Nodak, based in Grand Forks, served 55 missile silos around the region. "The percentage impact was quite a bit less because of their size, but it had an impact." "It had an impact on Nodak Electric, too," he said. Sheyenne Valley was incorporated in 1944 and was operational in 1947, serving communities and rural areas in Steele, Griggs, southern Nelson and parts of Eddy and Benson counties. "That's nearly 20 percent," said Troy Olson, Sheyenne Valley's general manager at the time. The missile sites contributed about $800,000 of Sheyenne Valley's annual revenue, which totaled about $4.3 million in the mid-1990s. Sheyenne Valley Electric Cooperative, based in Finley, N.D., served 43 missile silos and four launch facilities. The closing of the 321st Missile Wing had a major impact on North Dakota communities in the heart of the missile fields. "They were mysterious," said Merl Paaverud, who grew up on a farm near Finley. "We did understand as a community that it was a command center for missiles, and it was a very important part of the whole system."įew knew exactly what went on inside those single-story buildings secured behind heavy-duty chain link fences. "I think that most people knew what that place was all about," Vigesaa said. Oscar-Zero, the launch control facility north of Cooperstown, has been spared the wrecking ball, at least for now. Most of the facilities have been demolished. The missiles were moved to Montana in the late 1990s. The Air Force facilities and the communities co-existed for more than 30 years, before the end of the Cold War marked the end of the Minuteman III missiles in northeastern North Dakota. Security guards patrolled the area, and responded to any alert in the control center. Each Launch Control Center was connected with 10 missile launch facilities in the surrounding countryside, set off main roads and protected by chain-link fences. What passersby saw from the highway was only about one-third of the complex below.
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