Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: William J. Toman
Taken: August 6, 2010
Caption: Related Marker
Additional Description: Ranchers Meet Missileers
...a lot of people that were having these sites put on their place had settled in this area in horse and buggy....now you're putting a hole in the ground for a missle that could launch and go...5,000 miles and blow up millions of people...those types of things were hard for people to even put their arms around.
Gene Williams, South Dakota rancher

I feel what we did, we won the Cold War without firing a shot....you notice the Berlin Wall is down....we were there at a time when we needed to be there. And I think we made a significant contribution.
Alonzo Hall, Ellsworth Air Force Base missileer

Photo caption: Homesteaders filed claims in South Dakota as late as 1910. Ranchers in the 1960s used tools and followed seasonal patterns well known to their grandparents. Few families ever imagined that the federal government would install the latest intercontinental ballistic missle silos here.
Submitted: August 9, 2010, by William J. Toman of Green Lake, Wisconsin.
Database Locator Identification Number: p121726
File Size: 0.909 Megabytes

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