Is Visiting Minuteman Missile National Historic Site In South Dakota Worth It?

Visiting Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Is A Fascinating Look At Cold War History For Kids And Adults. It Is Absolutely Worth Adding To Your Badlands And Black Hills Itinerary

I find that sometimes smaller monuments, parks, and museums are often my favorite. You might think that there isn’t enough there to capture the kids’ interest but because the kids often focus better on these narrow topics because the subject matter isn’t so broad and the stories can go so much more in depth.

The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site is one of those great smaller sites among the 423 units that make up the National Park System. Narrowly focused on telling the story of the Minuteman Missiles and their importance in the Cold War, this historic site was a hit with both the kids and the adults in our family.

We learned a lot visiting the 3 separate sites that together comprise the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site as well as listening to the really interesting free audio accompaniment as we drove the short distances between the sites. It was an easy and interesting stop for us as we traveled between the Black Hills and Badlands National Park on our week-long South Dakota vacation.

Why Visiting Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Was A “Yes” for Us

The kids found the Minuteman missile story and the idea of hundreds of nuclear warheads below South Dakota farmland fascinating.

I thought the 3 site setup was a great combo of a museum (interesting exhibits and film in the Visitor Center) as well as seeing 2 historic sites in person. This is one of only two places in America where you can see a Cold War era missile silo according to the NPS website.

And everything is easily reachable from the interstate between Rapid City and Badlands National Park. Interesting and easy to get to? Sign me up!

So What Is The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site?

From the mid 1960s thru the early 1990s, there were 1000 Minuteman Missile Silos and 100 Launch Control Facilities in the Great Plains (specifically the Dakotas, Montana, Missouri, Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska). They were organized into “wings” with silos and control centers grouped together. Several of the six missile wings have since been deactivated, including this area, which was deactivated in 1993.

(There were other ICBM- InterContinental Ballistic Missiles sites in the Great Plains, including for Atlas, Titan, and the interestingly named Peacekeeper missiles, but Minuteman missiles were the most common.)

The name “Minuteman” is homage to the minutemen of the American Revolution who could be ready to fight the British at a minute’s notice. These missiles could be just as quick, leaving the silo armed and ready just about a minute after the activation keys are turned, another reason they were called “Minuteman Missiles.”

The kids were impressed by the technology behind the Minuteman Missiles– they could reach speeds of over 15,000 miles per hour, reaching the USSR in just 30 minutes from here. Also, each Minuteman’s 1.2 megaton warhead was 60 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. I found it impressive and scary at the same time.

The amount of manpower it took to maintain 24- 7 vigilance 365 days a year was huge. It wasn’t just manning the launch stations; it included maintaining all the electronics, the miles of electrical cables underground connecting silos to the launch controls, the silos themselves, the launch control facilities, and the roads to everything.

Also, you had to feed and house the technicians, security teams, and the missileers, which was the name for the officers trained to operate the Minuteman. (This immediately made me picture some sort of bizarre, dark universe Mouseketeer). So there were a lot of people involved the Minuteman project.

The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site aims to tell the story about all of this– the missiles themselves, why they were considered imperative in keeping the peace during the Cold War, and about all of the people involved, not just the crew members that had their finger on the button.

(Considering the realities of that responsibility made the missileers’ jobs the most important one in the kids’ eyes. In contrast, the cook’s role in all of this was less impressive to them, but I always think the support staff are some of the most interesting.)

I personally found the locals’s stories some of the most memorable — the kids that grew up with the missiles on their farmland and having that be a daily fact of life. The audio tour and the park film have snippets of the locals’ first hand accounts of their experiences which I thought were a great addition.

The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site was designated in 1999 and consists of 3 separate sites, near each other along Interstate 90 between Rapid City and Badlands National Park in western South Dakota.

The are 3 parts to visiting Minuteman National Historic Site:

1. Visitor Center– exhibits and a park film
2. Delta- 01 Launch Control Facility– the building where the launch control staff lived while on duty plus the underground launch control bunker. To see beyond the gate, you need tickets for a ranger guided tour.
3. Delta- 09 Missile Silo– an actual missile silo housing an unarmed Minuteman missile that has been outfitted with a glass top.

You can do the sites in any order although the NPS recommends that you start at the Visitor Center. Because we were coming from Rapid City, we started at Delta-09 and ended at the Visitor Center and felt that it was fine to visit the 3 sites in reverse order.

How Long Does It Take To Visit Minuteman Missile National Historic Site?

To do everything- minimum 3 hours

If you visit all 3 sites, and do all the extras, it will probably take you 3- 4 hours.

This includes the 45 minute ranger led tour of Delta 01 Launch Control Facility, taking your time to watch the whole park film at the Visitor Center, and listening to all the stops on the audio tour while visiting that stop.

To see all 3 stops briefly- 1 hour

You could stop quickly at the Visitor Center and see some exhibits but not watch the park film, then drive on to Delta- 01 which is 6 minutes away from the Visitor Center. Look at the Delta-01 control facility from the gate without taking the tour, then drive to the Delta-09 missile silo which is 15 min away from Delta-01. Read the signs at Delta-09 and walk out to the missile silo for a quick look around.

You can listen to parts of the audio tour while at Delta-01 and Delta-09 and catch up on the other parts while back in the car driving. If you keep an eye on your time and don’t spend too long at any one site, you could be done in about an hour or so.

If you only have 30 minutes- stop at Delta-09

See the Delta-09 Missile Silo and listen to the audio tour in the car driving to wherever you are going next. The silo was the single most impactful part I felt so if you only had time to do one part of the historic site, it would be the one I would pick.

You could do the stop in under 30 minutes and listen to as much or as little of the audio tour as you want.

What We Did On Our Visit- The Details

We were driving from the Rapid City Airport to Badlands National Park and decided to see the Minuteman on the way. Since we were coming from the west (meaning we were driving east on I90) we stopped at Delta-09 Missile Silo first because we passed that site first.

We left the Rapid City airport at 11:15 am and were pulling into the parking area for Delta-09 at 11:59 am.

Stop #1- Delta 09 Missile Silo

The Delta-09 Missile Silo is not far off of exit 116 /239th street from interstate 90 and it only took us a minute or two to get there from the interstate. There is nothing else around here except the NPS sign telling you which way to turn at the stop sign off the exit.

Right after you turn, you pass over a cattle grate and the paved roads ends. You only have to drive about 0.5 miles on this very flat and well maintained dirt road to get to the missile silo so it shouldn’t be a problem. It just reminds you how out in the middle of nowhere the government put these silos.

You can see the parking area and the silo before you get to it (it is super flat here) but the NPS put up some large signs just in case you might miss it ;).

The parking area, vault bathrooms, and small covered, information kiosk look relatively new. Once you have read the little bit about the Delta 09 site, you can walk the short distance out to the silo itself which is surrounded by a barbed wire fence.

The kids spent a lot longer than I thought they would, going to each numbered stop and listening to the corresponding narration on the audio tour. We ended up spending about 40 minutes at Delta-09, although some of that was just organizing 7 people through bathroom breaks and snacks and sunscreen application (no shade at all here, bad news in a family of redheads.)

Stop # 2- Delta 01 Launch Control Facility

Okay so Delta-01 Launch Control Facility is where I suffered my first major disappointment on our Dakotas trip because I found out before we left they were doing maintenance on the facility. This meant the NPS was not giving tours of the topside building and the underground bunker at the time we were there. Wah wah waah.

But we could still go up to the gate outside and listen to the cell phone tour, which was interesting and worth doing. I was super bummed not to go down to the underground launch control bunker and see the launch keys made famous in War Games. “Turn your KEY, Sir!”

(We made the kids watch War Games as pre-trip research. For a movie released in 1983, it has held up surprisingly well, although the thought of connecting to the internet by physically placing a telephone receiver on a modem blew their minds. It was hilarious to watch them try and figure out what was happening there. At least watch the first 10 minutes on YouTube so you can see the launch control facility in action. Anyway, enough about War Games.)

My day was somewhat salvaged by the great rangers at the Visitor Center who gave us a guided walk through of the Virtual Tour that’s available on the mobile site mentioned above. They put it up on a big screen and talked you through the whole site. So it was kinda like we got the guided tour and was definitely better than nothing. But it is still on my list to do the tour in person on my next visit.

Like Delta-09, it was easy to get to Delta-01. Take exit 127 from I90, and then follow the signs to go north of the interstate less than a mile. You can actually see the building from the interstate once you know what you are looking for so that helps too.

I found it interesting that the building itself is so nondescript, considering it was vital to national security. Just a beigey one story house surrounded by lots of barbed wire. I guess that was the point, nothing to particularly draw attention to the immensity of what lay beneath.

We spent only about 15 minutes at Delta-01 looking at everything through the fence. Then we listened to some of the stops from the audio tour while in the car driving onto the Visitor Center. It was hot outside despite being early October. (It snowed the week after we left so go I guess that’s life on the Plains.)

Stop #3- The Visitor Center

We ended up at the Visitor Center last which seemed odd because that’s usually where you start but honestly, it was fine. It is a small building that looks to be fairly new.

We watched the park film “Beneath The Plains: The Minuteman Missile On Alert” which was way better than most national park films I have watched but it is 30 min long so be ready for that. The kids watched the whole thing so they thought it was good too.

After the movie, we sat through the ranger guided virtual tour of the command center at Delta- 01. This was super interesting as well but it meant that by the time the virtual tour was finished, the kids had done a lot of sitting. They were a bit done with it all. So I didn’t get to explore the exhibits in the Visitor Center as much as I might have wanted but what I saw was interesting.

The Visitor Center has nice flush bathrooms and a little bookstore, plus a water fountain.

Helpful Information For Planning Your Visit To See The Minuteman Missiles

Opening Hours

Look at the website before you go as the days that are opened/closed change throughout the year.

The Visitor Center is open 8am-4pm most of the time throughout the year but it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays when we were there in October. And, according to the website, it is closed on Sundays and Mondays in the winter. Not sure about summer and spring.

The Delta 01- and Delta-09 sites are generally open from 9am- 3pm throughout the year but are usually closed on the same days of the week as the Visitor Center. You can always drive to the parking areas though and look through the fence.

All 3 parts of the Minuteman Missile National are closed on federal holidays except for 4th of July and Veterans Day.

Cost

It is free to visit all the sites. The only thing that costs money is if you take a guided ranger tour of Delta-01 Launch Control Facility.

Delta-01 Launch Facility Tours

You must have a reservation to go on the 45 minute tour. Only 6 people are allowed on the tour at a time.

You can book up to 3 months in advance and in the summer, tours can fill up 2 months ahead of time so go ahead and book as soon as you can. You can book online or by phone.

Be sure to check the NPS website for current details, including physical requirements necessary for the tour- i.e. climbing a ladder if the elevator breaks.

Tour Prices:

• $12.00 – Adults ages 17 & over
• $8.00 – Kids ages 6-16.

Nearest Places To Eat

Just south of the Visitor Center, on the road heading towards Badlands National Park, is a big convenience store called Badlands Trading Post that had all the kitsch you could possibly want, plus hot dogs, ice cream, and the usual gas station snacks.

If you are doing the visit going east to west (i.e. start with the Visitor Center, then to Delta-01 to Delta-09), you can keep driving 10 more minutes on I90 from Delta-09 to Wall and stop at the world famous Wall Drug.

The massive tourist site has a cafeteria style restaurant, an Ice Cream Soda Shop, plus a maze of shops to peruse. We found it a bit overwhelming to find our way around and a bit underwhelming in terms of food (the line for the cafeteria was long) but people seem to love it.

If Wall Drug soesn’t appeal to you or it is far too crowded, the town of Wall also has a Dairy Queen and a Subway if you need to feed kids in a hurry.

Places To Stay Near Minuteman Missile National Historic Site

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There isn’t a huge amount of choice near the missile sites as this is a pretty sparsely developed area. There are probably more campgrounds/RV parks around here than hotels so that could be an option.

Lodging Options In Wall

Wall is your nearest town but it is quite small and has mostly budget hotels. The Best Western Plains Motel in Wall is your best bet there out of the meager hotel offerings. Or try the Badlands Frontier Cabins, a cute little resort of cabins right off the interstate. They don’t have much of a view but there is a kids playground in the middle and you do get a hair more privacy than a hotel room.

If you are looking for camping then you should try one of the best boondocking sites I have ever seen. You can find it on Google Maps as Badlands Boondocking Area and it is right by the Badlands Pinnacles Entrance Station. No bathrooms or any amenities of any kind besides a dirt road right along the cliffs of the Badlands and epic views. It can get a little busy in the middle of summer so go early. According to reviews, it might be too windy for a tent sometimes as well.

Stay In Badlands National Park

Cedar Pass Lodge Is Amazing

My number one choice for lodging near Minuteman National Historic Site is the cabins at the Cedar Pass Lodge in nearby Badlands National Park. The lodge is only 20 minutes south of the Minuteman Missile Visitor Center.

We spent the night there after visiting the Minuteman Missile National Historic Area and it was perfect for us. We had 2 of the 2 Queen cabins for our group of 7 and the sunset and sunrise views alone were worth the stay.

Rapid City

Rapid City is less than an hour away and makes a great base for exploring the area. We stayed there for several nights while exploring the awesome Black Hills, after visiting the Badlands. There is so much to do within 60 minutes of Rapid City- Mount Rushmore, Wind Cave National Park, biking the Mickelson Trail, and hiking in Custer State Park.

Both of the hotels we stayed at were near each other at exit 61 off I90, just 10 min west of downtown Rapid City. There is a large and popular indoor water park, Watiki Indoor Waterpark Resort, at this exit and there are 5 hotels from major chains within walking distance of it. These hotels had the best prices in Rapid City, I guess because of the competition.

Residence Inn Rapid City. We spent 2 nights here in this relatively new and well run hotel and I would stay again. I always like a Residence Inn on a trip because of the full kitchens, which make preparing lunches for the road and snacks at night so much easier. Plus, the rooms tend to be quite spacious and have sleeper sofas, always helpful when kids don’t want to share with their siblings. They even have 2 BR suites so it is almost like an Airbnb. Included breakfast is always a winner for us and this one had lots of choices.

Fairfield Inn & Suites by Mariott Rapid City. We spent one night here and it was fine. I didn’t like it quite as much as the Residence Inn but that could have been because it was way busier when we were there, with lots of families and small children obviously coming for the waterpark. But the room was fine and I would stay there again although being attached to the waterpark wasn’t a plus for me although if we had younger kids with us, it might have been. Breakfast also included here.

If you want to stay in Rapid City’s cute and interesting downtown, with its good restaurants and shops all in a walkable couple of blocks area, then I would stay at the historic Hotel Alex Johnson. It looked very cool when we walked by, with a unique kinda Gothic Bavarianish lobby but has modern up to date rooms. Plus, a rooftop deck under the iconic neon sign that’s a landmark for downtown. This hotel is at the top of my list for next time we come.

*If you do go to downtown Rapid City, we really enjoyed the Firehouse Brewing Company (we went twice actually because we liked it so much) and Sabatino’s Italian Ristorante was an excellent meal for a little fancier choice than Firehouse.