City Hall Fallout Shelter - Chickasha, OK - Civil Defense Fallout Shelters on Waymarking.com

The three-story limestone block building at 117 N. Fourth Street has a partially exposed basement. It was built in 1914-1915 as the U.S. Post Office and Federal Courthouse. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places (#94001509).

To the left of the main entrance to City Hall is the easily recognizable sign showing the building to be a designated Civil Defense Fallout Shelter. The sign shows "In Basement" with a capacity of 390.

This building was once the location of a community shelter against atomic attack during the Cold War of the 1960s. In the 1960s, when the U.S. was fearful of an attack from Russia, the Department of Civil Defense was established and shelters were constructed throughout the country, and particularly in Washington D.C. Children in schools had regular Civil Defense Drills where they were taught what to do and where to go in the case of an atomic attack. Your radio program might be interrupted at any time with beeps and the words "This is only a test....." as the Civil Defense systems were tested.

The yellow sign (three triangles inside a circle) could be found in various places in towns, usually in strong, masonry buildings with basements (schools, armories and public buildings) where the maximum protection could be found. The program began to desolve in the 1970s when funding cuts and apathy prevailed. Today, you will rarely find one of these signs, and it is estimated that only 5 to 10 percent of them remain. Interest has recently surfaced to protect these signs as a part of our history.

Capacity of shelter: 390 Radiation monitoring equipment: Not Listed

Visit Instructions:
To find one of the waymarks, you need a picture of the sign and of the inside with your GPS in the picture.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   12/06/2018 The Snowdog visited it