Take Cover, Spokane: A History of Backyard Bunkers, Basement Hideaways, and Public Fallout Shelters of the Cold War - Paperback

by Lee O'Connor (Author)

Lee O'Connor explores the fascinating subject of Spokane's backyard bunkers, basement hideaways, and public fallout shelters, in this book about an eastern Washington city that set its Cold War fears in cement.Take cover, Spokane, Washington. That thought propelled residents into a fallout shelter mania in the summer and fall of 1961. "It soon reached the point," Spokane humorist Kent Graybill recalled, "where if you weren't at least planning a shelter in the basement or under the petunia bed, you were practically un-American." Years earlier, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had bellowed at the capitalist countries, "We will bury you " In the midst of Spokane's obsession with shelter digging, Spokanite Mrs. June G. Potter observed, "Maybe Khrushchev won't have to 'bury us' after all-we seem to be doing it for him."

Author Biography

Lee O'Connor earned his bachelor of arts degree in documentary filmmaking and history at the Evergreen State College, and completed a master's degree in history at Washington State University. As a cultural resources specialist with the King County Historic Preservation Program, he surveyed barns in May Valley and mid-century modern houses in Kenmore. He lives in Seattle where he is writing a book about abandoned underground missile silos in the Columbia Basin.