Declassifying Project Greek Island

Before we talk Project Greek Island, I guess I have to mention the Greenbrier Resort. First, the feature photo above is the only photo that I will offer for the Greenbrier Resort itself. The resort is a very well known oasis of luxury in the middle of no where West Virginia. Sure, the resort is over a 100 years old with a history that is another 100 years before that. The resort and grounds are immense. Yes, it is magnificent. And, the site hosts professional golf, as well as professional tennis events. Not to mention, the resort has a spa, casino, gourmet restaurants, and 5 star everything. However, I don’t like it.

In summary, it’s pomp and splendor to the nth degree. It’s stuffy, formal, fancy, uncomfortable and god awful expensive. You even have to dress up just to go into the casino. Happy hour pricing is an unknown concept. It’s just not the place for the budget conscience, relaxed, blue collar spirit of PugsleyTonks. So, why the hell did I go there? To be clear, I did not stay there. Nope. I only paid for one thing. That thing is the subject of this post. My son and I braved Greenbrier to visit the atomic bomb shelter and declassify Project Greek Island.

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As the story goes, back in the late 1950s, President Eisenhower visited the Greenbrier Resort. Beyond some golf and a spa treatment, President Eisenhower wanted to secure agreement from the resort executives to build the new West Virginia wing of the Greenbrier. The proposed plan was to dig out the big hill behind the main resort to build a new resort wing. But, before building the actual resort part, they would build out a massive “sub-basement” that could supposedly be used for “trade shows, conventions, storage, etc.” Please ignore the fact that the sub-basement was constructed with far more concrete and steel than is necessary for any normal “basement.” And, of course, this was no normal “basement.” This area below the new West Virginia wing of Greenbrier was actually the secret, atomic fallout shelter for the US Congress…code named Project Greek Island.

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Now, it is the relationship between the functioning resort and secret fallout shelter that is the fascinating part of the story. The massive nature of Greenbrier served as the camouflage to build and operate the fallout shelter. Beyond just hiding the initial construction, any kind of utilities, services, and supplies funneled to the shelter were lost within the massive logistics of Greenbrier. For example, a small contractor (with top secret clearance) took care of the shelter. But, they also took care of televisions and communications in the actual resort. Also, they had to store food for about 700 people for several months at all times. To keep this food fresh, they would rotate it into the gourmet restaurant. Often times, your five star ingredients had sat in the basement of the shelter for a few weeks before being served “freshly” to you.

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Now, I will try not to bore you with too many shelter facts. It’s a large, self sustaining, shelter meant to house both the US Senate and the House of Representatives in the event of a national emergency (President went elsewhere). The outer walls are 5 feet thick concrete with 20-60 feet of dirt on top of that. Everything they need to survive for a few months was in this shelter, e.g. power plant, communications, kitchens, bunks, congressional meeting rooms, etc. One key point to mention…this is a “shelter”…not a “bunker.” Meaning, this shelter would not designed to survive a direct atomic hit. But, due to the difficulty of dropping bombs in this mountainous area…I guess they figured that was good enough.

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The secret, congressional fallout shelter lasted for about 30 years. But, in the early 1990s, a reporter got a whiff of a story. This reporter then spent 18 months digging into the rumors of this mysterious government hide out. Bear in mind, this place was built in White Sulphur Springs, WV. If you were born there…you probably died there. There were many construction workers to interview that were present for the actual construction in the early 1960s. There was also leaks within the government that provided the actual blue prints to the reporter. Long story, short…the dirt bag reporter sold his story to the Washington Post. On May 31, 1992, the Washington Post published the story. Project Greek Island was officially dead that day. The shelter was never actually used by Congress. Although, they came very close in the first year of operation during the Cuban Missile crisis.

Today, a major data back up storage company leases most of the shelter. Logically, large, self sustaining atomic shelters also make great data/server back up sites for Fortune 500 companies. Your tour only covers that areas of the shelter NOT used by the server company. The reason that they do not allow phones on the tour has nothing to do with the actual shelter. All the security measures are due to the server company wanting to minimize cyber attacks to their operation. Anyway, enough of that. This post is getting too long. I hope you have enjoyed my version of declassifying Project Greek Island.

I hope you have enjoyed reading “Declassifying Project Greek Island” on Traveling with PugsleyTonks.

If you like this post, you may also like to check out this earlier post https://travelingwithpt.com/tired-of-crowds-try-dry-tortugas/

If your want to plan your visit to the Greenbrier shelter, visit here https://www.greenbrier.com/