Tracking Down The Atomic Beast: Survival Town & Yucca Flats
During the 1950s, mushroom clouds could be seen from the windows and balconies of hotels and casinos in Las Vegas. Seeing a nuclear detonation on horizon, off in desert wilds of the Nevada Proving Grounds, some 65 miles away to the north. From 1951 until 1992, on a desolate 3500 km area of the Nevada desert, a mind boggling 928 nuclear tests were carried out, amounting to 1021 detonations of nuclear devices. Welcome to the most nuked place on the planet. As a result of the detonations, 921 of them being underground, the area has been left peppered with subsidence craters. The most notable being the Sedan detonation, on July 6th 1962, which left a crater 1,280 feet (390 m) wide and 320 feet (100 m) deep that can still be seen today.
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In the early days the nuclear tests were almost a tourist attraction. Mobsters attempting to build the gambling business in Las Vegas offered viewings of nuclear explosions as an added lure to visitors. Roughly one detonation occurred every three weeks throughout the 1950s. To capitalize on this spectacle, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce created a calendar detailing the time of the detonations, along with suggested viewing spots. Thousands of films and pictures were taken and distributed around the world. Movie productions were made amidst the dust blowing from nuclear detonations. One of the most notable being The Beast Of Yucca Flats (1961). Famous for being one of the worst movies in cinema history, but also that it was shot on location at the infamous Yucca Flats, where the part of the testing grounds were located. In the movie, it's star Tor Johnson is transformed into a radioactive monster, after being exposed to a nuclear test nearby.
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The Sedan Crater, Nevada.
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Back in 1955 a series of 14 nuclear test explosions known as "Operation Teapot" were set off in the Nevada desert at Yucca Flats. As part of the series of tests, a town was built, Survival Town or sometimes jokingly referred to as Doom Town. Made-up of suburban houses, trailer homes, office buildings, fallout shelters, an electricity supply and other buildings and structures, Survival Town was also inhabited by hundreds of creepy mannequins. Whole families were dressed-up and positioned around TVs in living rooms, children reaching up to get food from the fully stocked larders, and folk out for a walk in the searing desert sun. All with beatific expressions, that belied the imminent doom they were about to face. It wasn't long before that desert sun was nothing in comparison to the heat from the nuclear tests, that reached temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun.
The test that took out Survival Town, was called Apple II. It had been delayed, due to high winds in the area. But on the morning of May 5th, 1955, a 31 kiloton bomb was detonated. It's estimate that the detonation was witnessed by over 6000 people. Some watched on TV or listened on radio, many other local residents watched the mushroom cloud live, as it rose on the horizon. Most people were kept some 6 miles away from the epicentre of the blast, which radiated 3 miles out from Ground Zero. Army troops in tanks and trenches got a birds-eye view however, at a mere 2 to 3 miles from Ground Zero. Many of them well within the blast zone and only protected by the shallow trenches they were hiding in. |
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Parts of Survival Town remains to this day. The Nevada Department Of Energy gives quarterly tours of the entire test area including the remains of Survival Town, though visitors must be over the age of 14 and pregnant women are advised not to attend, not because of radioactivity, but because of the bumpy bus ride.
Atom Bomb Baby Mix-Tape - Download our atomic themed mix-tape. Featuring vintage radio inserts, warning messages and the weirdest collection of songs this side of Yucca Flats.
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One of the two surviving Behlen Atomic Test Buildings can still be seen if you happen to be passing through Columbus, Nebraska. It's still standing, and still in use. Now being used as the offices of Lester F. Larsen Tractor Test and Power Museum. On the front of the building is a plaque, that reads, "This Behlen building was located 15,000 feet from a nuclear explosion at the Atomic Energy Commission's Nevada Test Site at 5am, May 5, 1955. The force of the explosion was equal to approximately 30,000 tons of TNT."
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It isn't just the Nevada Test Site that has surviving remnants of Survival Town. Way off in Columbus, Nebraska there is the Behlen Manufacturing Company. Who built the Behlen Dubl-Panl building, which was used for agricultural and commercial use. Some of the corrugated steel buildings were built and located in Survival Town. Two the buildings survived the blast of May 5th, suffering no more than a few dents. And thus the Behlen buildings became famous, and were toured around state fairs for years. Becoming known as the Behlen "Atomic Test Building".
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The Nevada Test Site lies about an hours drive north of Las Vegas on US 95. Divided into multiple numbered areas, the site sits adjacent to the infamous Area 51, and to the Nellis Air Force Base Gunnery Range. There are strict rules on visiting the site, and numbers are limited. Rules are, no cell phones, cameras or computers, firearms, Geiger counters, and a background check is required. And that participants must arrange tours months in advance and be cleared by background investigators before taking the tour.
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Heading north-west to Mercury, Nevada, about a half-mile off US 95 you reach a huge sign warning you to go no further without permission. Once through the gates, you head into the hills, passing contamination warning signs, forbidding people from collecting souvenir soil and rock samples. Passing bunkers and the remnants of huts dotted throughout the barren wasteland, you head towards Ground Zero. A few miles on you come across the two of the remaining houses of Survival Town. Two-story structures, scarred from the blast, and beaten by the Nevada heat. You eventually reach and stop at the massive Sedan Carter, a plaque marks it as now being on the National Register of Historic Places.
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