As you may have guessed by the title of this blog post (and the previous one), I’ve assigned myself the duty of exposing the underworld to you, Coolest Stuff readers.

So what’s today’s mysterious underground site? It’s the once top-secret bunker buried beneath the upscale Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia.

Here’s its story: Between 1959 and 1962, during the Cold War era, the U.S. government had the hill beneath a future addition to the Greenbrier hotel hollowed out. Then it had the hole filled with 50,000 tons of concrete. About 4,000 loads of concrete were hauled to the site by a supply company, and the bunker’s two-foot-thick walls were reinforced by steel. Two of the vaultlike doors installed at the site were each 12 feet, 3 inches high and 15 feet wide, and weighed 28 tons. These and other odd design features led nongovernment workers to assume one thing: The hotel was building a bomb shelter — a really, really big one. But nobody exactly came out and said it, according to the Washington Post. And the hotel certainly didn’t either.

Rumors swirled and stabilized, and for about 32 years, the concrete bunker beneath the hotel remained mostly a secret. It was watched over by a small staff of “contract concessionaire employees” who were really employed by the U.S. government. They spent 20 percent of their time attending to the hotel (to keep up a disguise) and 80 percent of the time tending to the bunker.

The bunker was built to sleep the entire U.S. House and Senate (and their spouses and non-adult children, assuming they had about two kids each) in the event of nuclear war. It could accommodate 1,400 people and included 18 dormitories, each packed with 60 bunk beds, a cafeteria for 400, 110 urinals, meeting rooms and a medical facility that could handle major surgery as well as routine teeth cleanings. If these 1,400 people had ever entered the facility in the event of war, they would have been showered off immediately upon entry and then presented with clean clothes. A storage hall was pregnant with supplies, including prescription medication for anyone who might stay at the facility. 

The top secret bunker became public in 1992, when a Washington Post reporter exposed it. (You really should read the article – fascinating stuff.) Paul Fritz Bugas, who managed the bunker for 22 years, told PBS he was devastated and hurt when the bunker was outed by the press. Today, the enormous bomb shelter looks like a time capsule of 1960s interior design and serves largely as a tourist attraction.

And, FYI, if you’re looking to throw a James Bond-themed party, the bunker will host it.

For more nuclear…
How easy is it to steal a nuclear bomb?
How Nuclear Bombs Work
How the Manhattan Project Worked