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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (June 27, 1963)
I :l! 2 g THURSDAY. JUNE 27, 1963 MiWOhD WML TfilftUME. MfcDrOHD, OhLOOM - - - - - ------ ifiock jHlillls Cove posed cas SAC Commoinidl location B RAY 8ERATI United Frm International Prinsle, S. D. - (WD - South Dakota's ancient Black Hills have known many strangers Gen. George Custer, Wild Bill Hickok, the Gold Rushers of Deadwood. The latest) strangers in in America's oldest mountains are crisp experts from the de tense department and Air Force. They are looking for caves. One of the caves could become a new home for the heart of the nation I air pow er, the Strategic Air Com mand (SAC). The newcomers have be come spclunkers and have crawled into darkened, Rocky caverns with an eye for po tentialities for a vast, under ground military headquarters. One of the caverns and per haps the most likely is Wind Cave, chief natural won der of the Black Hills. The present SAC command post is underground at Oma- ha, Nebr. Recently, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara said he felt the post was too vulnerable to attack. He said he would like to move part of SAC's deadly eggs to an other basket. AIUrnatM listad At that time McNamara listed what he considered to be three acceptable alternates. They were to bury the Omaha headquarters deeper with a harder core on top; find a mountain in Colorado and put T r LOOK OVER FORMATION Two tourists look over the rock formations in one of the rooms In Wind Cave in the Black Mills of South Dakota near Pringle, S.D. The cave is being considered as a possible alternate site for Strategic Air Command headquart ers. (UPI) the alternate SAC command inside; or put in Wind Cave National park in the Black Hills. McNamara implied Wind Cave, with its miles of sub terranean passages, was the most likely choice. That touched off one of the Black Hills greatest outcries against the military since Custer's last stand. Spclunk ers, park lovers, naturalists and Black Hills residents join ed forces in the attack on the Pentagon. Defense department spokes men were quick to say there might be other likely caves In the hills. They mentioned abandoned gold mines or parts of the still operating and long famous Homestake mine, the leading gold pro ducer In the Western hemisphere. South Dakota state officials believe the Black Hills had the inside track as the alter nate headquarters site. Their reasons were the big Ells worth Air Base, a SAC base, nearby and a vast dispersal of missiles immediately out side the Black Hills. Preliminary surveys of the caves have been completed and they are now in a "lim bo" while the initial surveys are digested, according to Air Force officials. Defense department men have said that because of the Black Hills' rugged and moun tainous topography anyone shooting at a target would have to make a direct hit. A near miss would leave a tar get unscathed. The Black Hills nave a dome - shaped up - thrust and ONLY 2 DAYS LEFT! STORE empster's -WODI Hurry! - QUANTITIES LIMITED! VPJ X. -X BIG VALUES! We MUST Reduce Our Stock DRASTICALLY Before July 1st Inventory . . . Prices are SLASHED! Many Important Savings on Decorator Styled Home Furnishings Left In Every Department-Buy Now! ALL SALES FINAL! NO EXCHANGES OR REFUNDS! ASK Your FRIENDS and NEIGHBORS . They'll Tell You A Dempster SALE IS A REAL SALE ! 323 Harnett Road Phone 7734CC0 NO DOWN PAYMENT UP TO 24 MONTHS BUDGET PAYMENTS! grjj TOUR FAMILY FURNITURE STORE "Shop at the Store Where you Park at the Door" they are the tallest mountains between the Rockies and the Alps. Geologists believe they are the world's oldest moun tains that the Himalayas were still swamps when the Black Hills were formed. Granite found in the hills is estimated at more than one billion years old. Ancient sed iments into which the Gran ite intruded as molten rock are even older. The Geologists believe Wind Cave, like many other caves in the hills, was cre ated in the Paha Sapa lime stone formation as ground waters containing carbonic acid disolved limestone along rock fractures. The rock frac tures apparently were form ed by the same forces that lifted up the Black Hills. In 1874, an expedition led by Custer discovered gold in the Black Hills. Up to that time the hill had been the "Paha Sapa," the sacred land of the Sioux In dians. Word of the discovery spread. Hickok was 'shot to death in the back at Dead wood in 1876. In 1877, the Homestake mine was started at Deadwood Gulch and now produces more than $20 mil lion a year in gold. Wind Cave was the first of the large Black Hills' caves to be found. It was discovered in 1881 by Tom Bingham, a Black Hills pioneer. While deer hunting, he was attracted by a strange whistling sound coming from beneath a clump of brush. Bingham found a small opening in Jie rock underneath the brush from from which the wind was blowing. Geologists have found that when the wind blows out of the cave the barometer is fall ing. When it blows in, the barometer is rising. The tem perature of the cave is an un varying 47 degrees fahren heit, winter and summer. National Park Wind Cave and the sur rounding 44 square miles be came the seventh National park In 1903. It was the first National park to include a unique cavern. Another cave which might make an alternate SAC head quarters is Jewel Cave, dis covered in 1900. The cave, which became a National monument in 1934, takes its name from the thick crystal line calcite covering the walls. Last yer Herb Conn, Cus Last year Herb Conn, Cus Jewel Cave. He mapped 12 miles of passages, seven more than Wind Cave. Jess Lombard, superinten-1 Crystal Lave, wonderland dent of Wind Cave, says Cave and Wildcat Cave. 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