Using Mines, Caves, and Missouri's Underground Spaces as Fallout Shelters During the Cold War

In 1961, the Missouri Civil Defense Agency prepared for nuclear war by planning to evacuate urban populations to caves and mines in rural areas. Robert C. Ellis, the Jefferson City engineer who led the federally financed project, estimated that mines and caves could protect almost three-quarters of Missourians from radioactive fallout. The plan lacked one crucial element: meeting the basic needs of urban refugees. State and federal policymakers assumed rural Americans would voluntarily operate reception centers, and provide food, sanitation facilities, and first aid. On the other hand, ordinary citizens reacted with skepticism and even hostility. Across the Midwest, urban evacuation plans forced conversations between rural and urban residents about the social, political, and economic costs of survival. This presentation by Jenny Barker-Devine explores those conversations and the ways in which ordinary people processed the unthinkable. When set within the context of global conflict, the civil rights movement, rural depopulation, shifting notions of community, deindustrialization, and agricultural change, it becomes clear that these conversations were about more than nuclear war.

About the speaker: Jenny Barker-Devine is a professor of history at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois. A graduate of the University of Central Missouri, she holds a PhD in agricultural history and rural studies from Iowa State University. She was a Center for Missouri Studies fellow in 2023.

This presentation aired live on Zoom December 12, 2024.