A few weeks ago I dropped off the kid at a friend’s house so they could play video games while I went geocaching at Lake Bixhoma. Near the lake are these water tanks for the city of Bixby.
Near the water tanks is the Oklahoma Geophysical Laboratory. Way back when in the early 1990’s, when George H. Bush was President he and Michael Gorbachev agreed to let the Russians build a nuclear monitoring station there so the Russians could keep tabs on the USA anytime we wanted to test a “device” bigger than 50 kilotons. Their monitoring station was deeded over to them and was considered Russian Territory just like an embassy (can you imagine that howling that would result if our current President agreed to anything of the sort.)
Several years later the technology needed advanced to the point where the Russians didn’t need the site any more and they deeded it back to the US.
Here is a brief newspaper article on the matter. This is an essay written by a woman whose father was involved in the project. And this is a brief history of the Oklahoma Geophysical Laboratory that talks about the Russian monitoring site and also some interesting information about how the facility is still involved in monitoring the world for nuclear tests.
Unfortunately, the lab and the old Russian site are well off the public roads and gated from inquiring bloggers. I would really like to go check things out there and take a few pictures. Apparently the road by the Russian site was renamed “Glasnost Road” and the road sign is still up.
Water Tower Wednesday is a feature my blog friend Fashionista. Check out her blog Out and About in New York City. The water towers in New York City don’t have near as much rust as the ones above do.
Oh, and yes I looked for four caches and found all of them.
Ah you are the geocaching All Star!! And a really interesting post/photos! Hope your week is going well!! Enjoy!
Clever clogs, finding all your caches – I reckon you may be getting too big for your boots.
(I only wrote that to see if you understood British sarcasm).
Not particularly impressed by the water towers but found the story most interesting.
What a fascinating piece of history!
If you find a way to get access to that site let me know. I’d love to poke around there.
Something tells me that if more people knew what George agreed to there would have been a firestorm of protest then too. So much government stuff flies under that radar that it’s not funny.
Wow, I think you should make arrangements to visit that old Russian site. Sure is an interesting story.
You might sneak onto Glosnost Road and place a geocache. You might have both the CIA and the KGB looking for you. That would be exciting.
love this.. not just for the shout out but also because its taken at a tilt, i seem to spend a lot of time straightening all my photos .. which all seem to list to the right …