Fallout Shelter - Kiowa County Courthouse - Hobart, OK - Civil Defense Fallout Shelters on Waymarking.com

A rare find is one of these yellow and white fallout shelter signs. 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 Russian, 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 dissolve 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.

The basement in the Kiowa County Courthouse at 316 S. Main Street served as a Fallout Shelter. The sign is mounted high on the brick wall to the right of the East entrance to the courthouse. The capacity of this particular shelter appears to read 158.

Capacity of shelter: 158 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   03/16/2019 The Snowdog visited it