SIR Bidwell Branch 110 Luncheon September 25, 2023
Titan Missile Silo Complex North of Chico
Our September Luncheon Speaker was Doug Williams who is the Principal
at Chico Senior High School talked about the Titan I Missile silo complex.
The missile silos’ formal designation was Beale 851-C and was also
known as Complex 1C.
They were part of an Air Force installation located north of the
Chico Municipal Airport in between Keefer Road and Cohasset Road.
The silos were built to house Titan I missiles during the
early 1960s and were dismantled and abandoned in 1965.
The missile site was part of the Beale Air
Force Base's 851st Strategic Missile Squadron.
The squadron consisted of three bases in California.
The other two were located in the Sutter
Buttes and the Placer County town of Lincoln.
All together, the three facilities cost more than $40 million to build.
Construction on the complexes began on January 22, 1960.
More than 600,000 cubic yards of earth and rock
had to be excavated and reused as backfill.
By the time the whole project was completed, each of the three
complexes had received 32,000 cubic yards of concrete, 90 miles
of cables, 300 tons of piping, and 1,800 separate supply items.
The sites were made active on April 20, 1962.
One month later, on May 24, two explosions were caused by liquid fuel.
Fuel was stored separately from the silo and only loaded
in the event of a launch so no missile was involved.
However, the potentially catastrophic event was overshadowed in
the national news by the launch of Scott Carpenter into space.
On June 6, trouble again struck as a flash
fire in another silo killed a worker.
The silo was later repaired for an amount of at least $1,250,000.
After damages were repaired, the Chico complex
became operational on March 9, 1963.
The Defense Department phased out the Titan missile program in
1964 and on March 25, 1965 the program was officially ended.
On Jan. 4, 1965, the first Titan at Chico was taken off alert.
In later years, many trespassers would make explorations
of the abandoned silos, however the site is now privately-
owned and fenced off from the general public.