Presque Isle Historical Society announces a new historical exhibit in the McCain Conference Rooms of Northern Light AR Gould Hospital.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the world looked very different. The United States was embroiled in the Cold War, tension between America and the Eastern Bloc or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (which included today’s Russia) after World War II that was characterized by the buildup and threat of mass destruction by nuclear weapons.
Presque Isle has long played a key role in the defense of the United States. John F. Kennedy, in an unscheduled presidential campaign speech while on the tarmac at Presque Isle’s Airport on Sept. 2, 1960, stated that residents here were “living in the center of the defense structure of the United States which caused the New York Times in 1958 to say that this area was one of three top targets of the Soviet Union in the case of another war.”
The Strategic Air Command chose Presque Isle as the location of the nation’s first intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead, the SNARK. The SNARK officially arrived in Presque Isle in May 1959. The missiles were located in six large metal hangars with twelve 16-foot deep circular concrete launch pads (which still exist) on what is appropriately named Missile Street.
The new exhibit provides details and photographs of the SNARK including why Presque Isle was chosen and ultimately why the program was shut down. The exhibit will run through the end of September and is open to the public at no cost, Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The McCain Conference Rooms are located on the second floor of the east annex of the hospital.
For more information on the exhibit or Presque Isle Historical Society, an all-volunteer not-for-profit organization, please the Society at pihistoricalsociety@hotmail.com.
