Safeguard Complex: North Dakota's Cold War Missile Pyramid

In the late 1960s, the U.S. faced a new Cold War fear: that the Soviet Union might launch a first strike to destroy America's nuclear missiles in their silos. The Army's answer was the Safeguard Program, a system of radars and interceptor missiles designed to protect the Minuteman missile fields. One of the sites chosen was in the farmland of northeastern North Dakota, guarding the missiles of Grand Forks Air Force Base. Construction began in April 1970 near the small town of Nekoma, and more than 1,000 workers poured in. The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union limited each country to two ABM sites, and work at other planned Safeguard sites stopped. Nekoma, the furthest along, was finished. Its centerpiece was the Missile Site Radar, housed in a massive concrete pyramid with large round radar faces on its sides, visible for miles across the prairie. About 25 miles to the northeast, near Cavalier, the Perimeter Acquisition Radar would watch for incoming missiles over the North Pole. The pyramid would then track them and guide the interceptors. Around it, underground launchers held 30 long-range Spartan missiles and 16 short-range Sprint missiles, with about 54 more Sprints at four remote launch sites. Both types carried nuclear warheads. Rather than hitting incoming warheads directly, they were designed to destroy them with nuclear explosions overhead. The complex reached initial operating capability on April 1, 1975, and full operational capability on October 1, 1975. The cost was about $6 billion. The very next day, October 2, 1975, the House voted to deactivate it. Critics argued it was too costly and too limited, and that the blasts from its own nuclear interceptors could blind its radars. The complex was shut down in early 1976. The closing hit the region hard. Unemployment in nearby counties rose sharply, and surrounding towns lost much of their population; Nekoma lost nearly half. In 1979, the pyramid's doors were welded shut. The long-range radar near Cavalier kept working, and it still operates today as Cavalier Space Force Station. But the pyramid sat empty for decades. In 2012, the Spring Creek Hutterite Colony bought the complex at auction for $530,000. In 2020, the pyramid and part of the property were sold to the Cavalier County Job Development Authority. In 2026, the state announced agreements to redevelop the pyramid as a high-security data center.