Most Everglades history is about water, wildlife and the people who lived with both. One chapter is about missiles. For about fifteen years during the Cold War, a U.S. Army air defense battery kept Nike Hercules missiles ready to launch from a site inside Everglades National Park. The National Park Service now calls the site, HM-69, “one of the best preserved relics of the Cold War in Florida.”

Our Everglades History series covers the wider region around the Everglades and Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area. HM-69 is in Everglades National Park, which the National Park Service manages, and our tours do not go there.

A Crisis Close to Home

According to the National Park Service, an American U-2 spy plane photographed Soviet missile sites in Cuba on October 14, 1962. The Park Service explains that U.S. air defenses had been built mainly to stop Soviet bombers coming over the North Pole. That left South Florida largely unprotected from the south. The Park Service notes that the site later chosen for HM-69 is 160 miles from the Cuban coast.

The Park Service says the Army’s 2nd Missile Battalion, 52nd Air Defense Artillery, was deployed in late October 1962. The battalion had four batteries of about 150 men each. The Park Service’s 2004 Cold War in South Florida Historic Resource Study gives a closer timeline. It says the Nike Hercules troops left Fort Bliss, Texas, on October 28, reached Homestead Air Force Base on October 31, and had their batteries ready to fire by November 14, 1962. The study also notes that the first missiles to arrive carried conventional warheads, not nuclear ones.

On November 26, 1962, the NPS says, President John F. Kennedy went to Homestead to present the 52nd Air Defense Artillery with the Army’s Meritorious Unit Commendation. The first positions were temporary. Two batteries set up tent camps just outside the park entrance. The historic resource study describes mosquitoes and flooding, and says Hurricane Flora damaged the temporary positions in October 1963.

From Tent Camp to Permanent Base

According to the historic resource study, the Army announced in August 1963 that the South Florida missile sites would become a permanent part of the national air defense network. The NPS says park managers gave the Army a permit to build a base inside the park. The study says the permanent site was built on land once farmed by the Iori farming operation, in the area now called the Hole-in-the-Donut. After the farm went bankrupt, the land was transferred from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to the Army.

Sources give slightly different dates for when the permanent base opened:

• The NPS HM-69 page and the historic resource study both say the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed the base in 1964.
• The same NPS page says A Battery moved to the new permanent site in 1965. The study also says South Florida’s missile soldiers moved into their new facilities that year.
• A 2012 Everglades National Park news release puts A Battery’s move into the park in 1966.

South Florida’s geography shaped the base. Nike sites elsewhere usually kept missiles in underground magazines. The historic resource study says Florida’s high water table made that impossible here, so HM-69 used three aboveground missile barns instead. The Society of Architectural Historians’ SAH Archipedia entry explains that the fire-control area and the missile storage and launch area were deliberately built apart. According to the study, about 146 soldiers and technicians ran the site.

Always Ready, Until 1979

The NPS says A Battery soldiers kept 41-foot missiles in a constant state of readiness. Some missiles were fitted with nuclear warheads of up to 40 kilotons. The Park Service also notes that South Florida’s Nike Hercules sites were linked with Hawk missile sites to defend against aircraft at every altitude. The historic resource study says this combination was not used anywhere else in the United States. The study also notes HM-69’s rare mobile high-power acquisition radar.

The study says South Florida’s Nike sites were among the last active Nike sites in the continental United States. They stayed in service about five years after similar sites elsewhere had closed. According to the NPS, official use of HM-69 ended in 1979. The historic resource study says the former fire-control area became the park’s Daniel Beard Research Center in the early 1980s.

A Preserved Piece of the Cold War

The NPS says HM-69 includes 22 buildings and structures. These include three missile barns, a missile assembly building, a guard dog kennel and barracks. In 2004, thanks to the efforts of a Nike veteran, the site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Park Service also says it continues to collect histories from veterans of the battalion.

HM-69 shows that a protected landscape can also hold the story of national decisions made far away. Anyone hoping to visit should check current National Park Service information for Everglades National Park. When this article was researched, the NPS said access varies by season and staffing, with ranger programs in winter and partner-led programs at other times. A visit to HM-69 is separate from an airboat tour.

Learning the history adds another dimension to the landscape. If you would like to experience the Everglades for yourself, you can explore Miami Airboat’s tour options within the Everglades and Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area.

Sources

• National Park Service, HM69 Nike Missile Base (Everglades National Park; last updated February 4, 2026)
• National Park Service (Steve Hach, ed. Jennifer Dickey), Cold War in South Florida: Historic Resource Study, October 2004 (GovInfo)
• National Park Service, Veterans visit Park’s Nike Missile Site HM-69 (news release, October 18, 2012)
• National Park Service, Nike Missile Site Self Guided Tour
• Society of Architectural Historians, SAH Archipedia: HM 69 Nike Missile Base

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