Posted on 05/10/2016 8:38:20 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Radar Tower Historic Status, Decide it Will Stay
Santa Clara County supervisors Tuesday decided the fate of a radar tower sitting atop Mount Umunhum.
For years, a battle has brewed over whether to take down the prominent radar that some have labeled an eyesore and others, a historical treasure. Many see the tower as a symbol of Silicon Valley, but the 56-year-old construction is also a piece of Cold War history.
On Tuesday, the county’s board of supervisors voted unanimously to declare the tower historic, effectively ensuring that it won’t be going anywhere.
“The tower was the coastal defense radar that would look out 200 miles for incoming enemy bombers carrying nuclear weapons,” said Sam Drake, president of the Umunhum Conservancy.
Members of the conservancy group pled their case to Santa Clara County supervisors Tuesday, hoping to convince them to add the tower to the county’s historic inventory. The move would make it much more difficult for the Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District, which manages the summit, to take down the radar tower.
After hearing from both sides, the board of supervisors agreed with the conservancy group, but their decision didn’t sit well with some Native Americans.
“Preserving the tower ignores the history the tribal folks had with Mount Umunhum,” said Valentin Lopez with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band.
Bob Watts, who worked on the radar tower when he was 18 years old, disagreed. He said the tower was built to withstand a nuclear bomb, adding that he is glad to see that public pressure won’t be able to take it down.
Mr. Lopez said he was fine with it being there, when he was at an event there.
Good. My. Uhmunum is historic
..The tower was the coastal defense radar that would look out 200 miles for incoming enemy bombers carrying nuclear weapons...
Someday this tower will suffer the same fate as the Confederate flag, monuments, and burial sites of Confederate soldiers.
It will just take the right fringe lunatic liberal anti war/anti military group to pull it off.
I wonder if they feel all the windmills throughout the Diablo range just to the East are eyesores that don’t respect cultural heritage?
It makes a good reminder of two things. The need to stay ever vigilant against attaks. The dangerous game of nuclear deterrence we played for decades. Both lessons need to be carried forward.
Paint it so it looks like a Rubik’s Cube. THAT would be cool.
Have these guys ever had any hits? I've never heard of them.
It’s part of the local Ohlone Indians.
Now it's off limits cuz it's so scary to climb to the top and people might fall.
Glad I got a chance to see the spectacular view of The Valley from the top before it was declared terra non grata.
I like that idea!
she’s a beauty,,
In Pacifica is an old Nike Tracking station, about a mile or 2 south of Skyline college. I used to ride my mtn bike there. It has been picked over for years, and there is nothing fun left to steal.
Even the doors are gone; we used to ride our bikes directly into the building to escape the weather.
The actual missile pad was north in Milagra Ridge and was way less interesting.
Speaking of the Marin Headlands:
If you go up the hill and at the crossroads, rather than go down into the Tennessee Valley (where your photo was taken), you go left to the big tunnel, and go through the tunnel, there are some really cool remnants of WW2 coastal batteries.
I’m sure you already knew that!
You could paint it Black, but once a year it would be surrounded by thousands of Muslims.
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