September 14, 2010

The Titan II Missile program was a Cold War weapons system featuring fifty-four launch complexes located in three states and capable of delivering a nine-megaton nuclear warhead 5,500 miles away. Construction began in 1961 on the first of eighteen complexes located in five Arkansas counties (Faulkner, Conway, White, Van Buren, and Cleburne). Two of the most noteworthy disasters that occurred in the program took place in Arkansas. The first happened on August 9, 1965, when fifty-three civilian workers perished in an accidental fire while they were modifying Launch Complex 373-4. The second occurred on September 19, 1980, when an explosion destroyed the missile at Launch Complex 374-7 near Southside in Van Buren County.