The National Park Service has reopened the historic Nike Hercules Missile Base HM-69 in Everglades National Park for hiking tours. They were first offered in 2009.

Ranger-guided tours bring park visitors through one of Florida’s best preserved relics of the Cold War. According to a statement from the park, “This significant historical site is physically the best overall example of the nation’s missile defense system close to Cuba and remains virtually the same as it was when official use of the site was terminated in 1979.”

The missile base was built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 1963 at the height of the Cold War, immediately following the Cuban Missile Crisis. At a time when national security against Soviet attack was America’s main priority, the United States Army chose this strategic site within Everglades National Park, located 160 miles from the Cuban coast, to build a missile site.

The base was listed on the U. S. Department of the Interior’s National Register of Historic Places in 2004 as a Historic District. The area includes 22 contributing buildings and structures associated with events that have made a significant contribution to American history and embodies distinctive characteristics of the period.

Some of the structures that are part of the tour include three missile barns built to contain 41-foot missiles (some with nuclear warheads), a missile assembly building, a guard dog kennel, barracks, control centers within berms that served as blast protection and a number of other features.

This base is one of four that were built in South Florida. The others were in Key Largo (now Key Largo Hammocks State Park), in Miramar (now a Publix shopping center) and in Miami (now the Krome Detention Center).

The interpretive tours are on weekdays at 10 a.m. and on weekends at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. The tours are free but park entrance fees apply. In order to join the tour, reservations are needed and can be made at the park’s Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center near Homestead or by calling 305-242-7700.

Additional information about the Nike Missile site can be found here.