The Greenbrier Bunker

The cover

The Greenbrier at White Sulphur Springs was already the kind of resort presidents visited. In 1958 the government paid for a new West Virginia Wing, and the excavation for the wing covered the excavation for what was underneath it: a bunker of reinforced concrete with blast doors weighing tens of tons, set into the hillside behind the hotel.

Inside were dormitories with bunks assigned by name, a clinic, a power plant, a decontamination area, an incinerator, and two halls sized and fitted for the House and Senate to sit in. The bunker was completed in 1961 and kept at operational readiness, with food rotated and equipment serviced, for the next three decades.

The maintenance crew

The people who kept it running worked for Forsythe Associates, a company that serviced televisions at the resort. They did service televisions. They also maintained the bunker, held security clearances, and were on call, and the arrangement held for 30 years.

Hotel staff and locals noticed things over the years, the way people do. Nobody put it in print.

May 31, 1992

Ted Gup, an investigative reporter at The Washington Post, worked from a tip, went to the resort, and published. The article described the facility, its purpose, and its location. Its secrecy gone, the bunker was decommissioned as a government facility.

What it is now

The resort runs it as a tour. The blast doors, the bunks, the chambers, and the decontamination showers are all still there, and the conference rooms in part of the space have been sold to a data storage business. The one plan the United States had for keeping its legislature alive after a nuclear exchange is now something you buy a ticket for.

Tours run about 90 minutes and cost around 52 dollars for adults and 24 dollars for ages 10 to 17, with 10 the minimum age, and you do not need to be staying at the resort. Booking ahead by phone is the norm, and the bunker closes for short periods each year.

Phones, bags, and cameras are not allowed inside and go into lockers before you go down, so there are no photographs from the tour. Underground it is cool, level, and long, with a lot of standing and walking on concrete.

The Greenbrier sits in White Sulphur Springs off Interstate 64, with an Amtrak stop at the resort itself on the Cardinal line, which is a better arrival than it sounds.