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Creegen's before Concert
Cregeen's Irish Pub was one of the packed party places before Wednesday night's Van Halen concert at Alltel Arena.
During a 1 a.m. patrol of the Millwood Lake dam, Little River County, Ark. Deputy Sheriff Austin Ardwin found an open door leading to a nuclear fallout shelter.
Ardwin was patrolling Millwood Lake driving along Arkansas Highway 32 on top of the dam when he noticed a door on top of the dam open.
The door was one of several leading to the tainter gates used as a radial arm floodgate in dams to control water flows.
Ardwin was unaware the doors also lead to a nuclear fallout shelter.
Finding the door open, Ardwin was going to learn a history lesson.
The shelter was incorporated during the original construction inside and below the spillway gates of the Millwood dam during the early 1960s.
It was a time when the U.S. military and the public were serious about the threat of nuclear war with Russia.
"It was built during the height of the cold war in 1966. Three years earlier President Kennedy was murdered. We had the Vietnam War. People were concerned then about the possibility of a nuclear war," Ardwin said.
He had heard rumors about a nuclear fallout shelter in the dam and when he opened the door Ardwin thought maybe there was some truth to the rumors.
Ardwin didn't have anyone to back him up, but he believed he needed to check the open door and follow the path down the flights of stairs.
He radioed the sheriff's department dispatcher saying he was going to explore the open door.
"It was a creepy experience. It felt like I was walking in a cave," Ardwin said.
"Each step I was taking, I was thinking how amazing the size of it. It was a system of tunnels inside the dam. I kept going down flights of stairs," Ardwin said. Two of the floors were used for the shelter.
"It was an exhausting experience. I had more than I could bargain for with just the sheer number of stairs. It wore me out. I wasn't in the best shape and had 30 pounds of equipment we wear when on duty. It took it's toll. It was worst going back up the stairs," he said.
The shelter has layers of concrete.
"It was strong enough to hold back a river," he said.
Ardwin was surprised when he discovered a construction crew way down in the shelter.
"It was eerie down there and then I saw men. When I first saw them, I had a suspicious feeling. I scared them, as much as they scared me. I identified myself and told them a door was open," Ardwin said.
"They showed me their federal identification and they were working on a maintenance project and told me it took longer than they anticipated," he said.
The construction crews checked out.
Ardwin is the publisher of the Facebook page "Southwest Arkansas Historian" and published a story about his
encounter.
Most of the supplies have been removed and the area which served as a shelter is now used for storage.
"Constructed at a time when Nuclear War with the Soviet Union seemed inevitable, the designers of Millwood Dam incorporated a nuclear fallout shelter in the their plans. Located under layers of concrete directly below the gates of the dam," wrote Ardwin in Facebook.
"But before you begin to think it might have helped you or your family, think again: Civil Defense Protocol of the 1960-1970's show that housing in such a structure would be primarily reserved for elected officials and military personnel, most civilians were expected to shelter in place or find a public shelter," he said.
"Fortunately, the shelter has sat unused for the last half century. As survival supplies and rations expired, they were taken out and never replaced," he said on the Facebook page.
For related information of Civil Defense programs of the 1960's, visit www.civildefensemuseum.com
"Built strong enough to hold up a freight train and hold back a lake, Millwood Dam's 50,000 tons of concrete provided a pristine location for a fallout shelter," Ardwin
said.