On September 8, 1955, Mark Turner sold 11 acres of land to the
U.S. Government. The site is located at the corner of Georgetown Pike
and Springvale Road.
It is where the U. S. Government launched and controlled the
missiles at the Nike fields that protected Washington, D. C. The Nike
fields are located near Forestville School in Great Falls.
Although they were never fired, the missiles were always ready to
be launched. The two strongest bombs there were the Zeus Missile and
the Hercules Missile. They were stored in underground silos.
The Nike Control Site people helped the community in a lot of
ways. They helped the Fire Department to extinguish fires. After the
Cold War was over, there was no more use for the Control Site. It was
no longer used for firing missiles, so it became an Army map service
and a weather station.
Today, the U.S. Government is deciding whether to turn it over to
the Fairfax County Park Authority. It might then become a planetary
observatory, athletic fields, a Cold War Museum or a park.