A commercial records storage firm uses a former Cold War bunker located on Snake Hill Road in Chepachet, RI. We are looking for additional historical information on this facility.
If you can help please contact us at webmaster@coldwar-ct.com.
In 1962, in response to Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon's urge that banks and insurance companies construct protected sites for the storage of banking and financial records in the hopes that society would continue after the a nuclear attack, Industrial National Bank of RI started construction of an underground, nuclear hardened facility in Chepachet, RI.
Constructed at a cost of $500,000 the side housed the accounting operations of the Industrial National Bank of RI. The facility was designed to resist atomic blast, hurricanes, tornados and external explosions.
The site was selected after a thorough study of possible nuclear targets in the state and analysis of the various yields of nuclear weapons likely to be used.
Providence was the nearest targeted site and it was assumed a 5mT nuclear device was targeted on it. The bunker was 10 miles from Providence, far enough to be safe from a direct hit.
The facility was hidden in plain sight at the four-way intersection of Snake Hill Road, West Greenville Road, and Smith Avenue, almost directly on the Smithfield-Glocester town line.
When the facility opened in January, 1963 it wa said to be one of the first non-government underground computer center in the US.
Article about a tragic construction accident at the facility in 1962.
http://smithapplebyhouse.org/the-industrial-national-bank-disaster/
