The Cold War was a turbulent time. As millions of Americans became fearful of nuclear armageddon, they prepared by building fallout shelters.
The thick-walled shelters were stocked with enough food to let anyone inside ride out a radiation storm.
Knoxville joined cities across America in building underground shelters after Congress in 1961 earmarked more than $169 million, which equates to $1.7 billion today.
But what happened to those old shelters? Can they still be used in an attack? What about all those supplies?
Clues remain scattered around the city.
Where are fallout shelters in Knoxville?
The Office of Civil Defense organized a national shelter survey in 1961 to find all the structures capable of fitting at least 50 or more people.
They also calculated how many supplies to stock them with for two weeks of survival.
In a community fallout shelter pamphlet published in the Knoxville News Sentinel in 1969, Knox County was divided into 16 zones, each with bomb shelters.
“Save this plan … it may save your family. Where to go and what to do in case of a nuclear attack,” it read.
The 16 districts were:
-
South Knoxville and Vestal
-
University of Tennessee, Sequoyah Hills and Lonsdale
-
Holston Hills and Whittle Springs
-
Forks of the River and Meads Quarry
-
Colonial Village and South Knox County
-
UT Hospital and Alcoa Highway
-
West Hills and Cumberland Estates
-
Beverly Hills and Tazewell Pike
-
Bearden, Farragut, Concord and southwest Knox County
-
Solway, Karns, Cedar Bluff and West Knoxville
-
Mascot and east Knox County
-
Kimberlin Heights and southeast Knox County
The Office of Civil Defense created thousands of signs with three yellow inverted triangles on a black background to show passersby where the shelters were located.
When the Soviet Union fell, the need for shelters diminished. They were no longer maintained or restocked, and many buildings that once housed them have been demolished or renovated.
Knox News found two shelters that remain today: Church Street United Methodist Church on Henley Street and YMCA on Clinch Avenue.
Church Street United Methodist Church fallout shelter
The Church Street United Methodist Church fallout shelter is now known as “the dungeon” by the few staffers who know about it.
Katie Strangis, a Church Street United Methodist Church spokesperson, said many lifelong members had never heard of the shelter or assumed it was just a rumor.
It’s guarded by a large lead sliding door leading into a tunnel-like path into the depths of the church.
The shelter is a small, dark, dreary concrete room with high ceilings and pipes running along its solid interior.
Preserved inside are Department of Civil Defense carbohydrate supplements with 12 pounds of reserved food in each, along with sanitation equipment and toiletries.
A can of carbohydrate supplements remains in the fallout shelter at Church Street United Methodist Church.
It’s essentially in the same as it was in the late 1960s with one important exception. Pipes now adorn the walls and lead to the outside, so it can no longer block radiation.
YMCA fallout shelter
Kenneth Haynes is in charge of membership facilities at the YMCA and has been working there for 33 years. He played there as a kid, too.
“I remember it from when I was little because, since my mother worked here, I would come down here and play and I remember there being an old metal sign, a yellow and black one, for a fallout shelter sign. The walls are like 2 feet thick with solid concrete and river rock in them.”
Think walls give away the former location of a fallout shelter in the basement of the YMCA in downtown Knoxville.
The shelter is now a storage room that was renovated somewhere along the way. But the clues are still there.
The thick concrete walls block out sunlight. Strong ceiling beams offer support. A tunnel under the pool leads you there.
With the development of powerful long-range missiles, the view of these shelters as being unrealistic as a means of survival in the face of a nuclear holocaust began to become the majority opinion on fallout shelters.
Staffer Kenneth Haynes opens the door to an old fallout shelter in the basement of the YMCA on Clinch Avenue in downtown Knoxville.
A can of carbohydrate supplements remains in the fallout shelter at Church Street United Methodist Church.
A tunnel to the YMCA fallout shelter runs underneath the pool.
Church Street United Methodist Church members thought the fallout shelter was a rumor, but it is hidden on the property.
A lead door was designed to protect those seeking shelter inside.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Knoxville Cold War fallout shelters still exist in a church and YMCA