A fallout shelter that survived the threat of nuclear war and the ensuing six decades met its fate Tuesday at the hands of the Henderson City Commission, which decided to fill it with sand.
When funeral director Paul Moss had it installed at 510 Second St. on Dec. 20, 1961, The Gleaner called it “perhaps the largest pre-fab bomb shelter ever installed in Kentucky.” That story said it measured 8 by 24 feet and could accommodate up to 16 people.
The city of Henderson acquired the property on Second Street and plans to raze the former house/funeral home as well as a two-story garage so the structures will not interfere with construction and operation of a new fire station next door. The property has been used in recent years as The Answer Center.
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When the subject of awarding a demolition contract worth $33,988 to Hazex Construction Co. came up, City Manager William “Buzzy” Newman expressed reservations.
“We had planned on filling the shelter in place” with sand, he said. “The depth of it is too deep to excavate and get rid of it due to adjoining houses. It’s been a piece of Henderson history for many years” and he asked for direction on whether the commission wants to “preserve it and keep it in place with some type of chain-link fence around it to keep the public out in the future.”
That recommendation fell on deaf ears.
“I’m having trouble finding the value of it if it’s got a chain-link fence around it and nobody can see it or anything,” said Mayor Steve Austin. “I think we probably ought to fill it in.”
The commission briefly discussed whether it might have any tourism value. “It’s a unique piece of history at that location,” Newman replied.
“We had one also in the bottom of the Station One power plant on Water Street,” Austin noted. That structure was razed in 2013.
Newman said it will cost about $2,000 to expose the shelter, fill it with sand, and backfill over the top. “I don’t know what it would cost to put a fence around it. A lot of people don’t know that it even exists there.”
“Anyone want to save it?” the mayor asked. The entire commission replied in the negative when he took a straw poll.
City commission candidate Jay Randolph also expressed support for filling it in, making a comment on Facebook while the meeting was being aired live: “It’s a liability issue waiting to happen.”
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The Gleaner’s 1961 article about the shelter said it was built out of seven-gauge steel by the DaWelco firm of Nashville, Tennessee, and cost $3,900. That wasn’t as much as a 1962 Cadillac back then but it was well more than the prices of most other American cars.
It was the company’s top-of-the-line model, equipped with a telephone, TV, a water tank and a heavy-duty air filter. “The double bunk beds, with foam rubber mattresses, can be converted into a couch for daytime use,” the story said.
Two decades after it was installed late columnist Judy Jenkins wrote about the shelter in The Gleaner of April 11, 1982. Moss had sold the funeral home to Maynard Glunt five years earlier – and by 1982 was wanting to buy it back “for the same reason I bought it in the first place,” Moss said. “I’d want it for a bomb shelter, but also because it’s a storm cellar that’s good protection from storms and high winds.”
Glunt never entered it once during the five years he had owned it because he said he was “a little bit claustrophobic.”
Moss, on the other hand, found the fallout shelter a cozy hideaway. Funeral home staff could contact him on the phone if he were needed. In fact, the shelter still contained a 1962 phone directory two decades later.
“He was proud of the carpeted shelter, with its eight pull-down cots and bright plaid mattresses. For the scores of curious people who asked to be allowed to see the units – and who signed a green guest register – Moss told how it has its own built-in water tank and oversized steel intake and exhaust designed to filter and purify the greatest amount of fresh air in the shortest time.”
It remained well-stocked with canned liquid nutrition, emergency drinking water, boxes of Kleenex and a Bible as of 1982.
“It’s still ready,” Jenkins wrote, “with its boxes of candles and other less-pleasant items, like body bags and a portable embalming machine.”
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