The Nike-Hercules missile launch site on the north side is impressive. Sobering to realize each anti-air missile warhead had a nuclear bomb.
Indeed. That was the final breakthrough defense system after all else failed. Imagine Nike Ajax taking out Russkie nuke bombers up to 70,000 feet and only 30 miles offshore with nukes! That would give you quite a light show in nearby cities.
Beginning in 1953, Ajax missiles were installed in some 200 fixed launcher sites in cities and military sites throughout the United States.
In 1958 the larger Nike Hercules began to replace the Ajax. Its two-stage, solid-propellant engines could carry either a high-explosive or a nuclear warhead at more than three times the speed of sound to targets as high up as 150,000 feet and more than 75 miles away. Hercules was designed for defense against attacks by massed formations of bombers, but a more sophisticated radar system enabled improved versions to intercept short-range ballistic missiles as well as aircraft.