Isle of Wight has always enjoyed a close relationship with the military. The county has a higher-than-average percentage of veterans among its residents, and in recent years, we’ve become a favored locale for military families looking at a retirement home. 

Seventy years ago, we also had — though briefly — a military installation.

It was July 1954 when the U.S. government filed condemnation petitions in U.S. District Court in Norfolk to take two tracts of farmland in Carrollton. The larger of the two, located on what is now known as Nike Park Road, was owned and farmed by Algie J. Murphy and his wife, Beula. A smaller tract, located where Jones and Titus Creeks meet, was carved out of a farm owned by the Marshall family.

The larger trace would become a Nike Ajax Guided Missile Site, which the government hoped would be a crucial part of the nation’s home defense system in the rapidly escalating Cold War.

The second site housed the radar tracking system crucial to the fledgling Nike system.

The tiny base in Carrollton was one of eight similar facilities located strategically to protect against possible Soviet missile attack on the area’s major military installations and related facilities. 

By the time the condemnation petitions were filed, the Army had already issued construction contracts for the missile and radar site facilities. With the Cold War ramping up, the Army wasn’t wasting time. Within about six months, the Carrollton base was up and running, with around 200 mostly very young soldiers manning it.

Isle of Wight residents embraced the military’s arrival and the feeling was mutual. While construction was underway, Army officials met with the Smithfield Town Council to talk about housing for military families. Smithfield and Isle of Wight had little excess housing, but the town committed to finding housing for about 20 families who expected to be transferred here.

The Army quickly showed that it wanted to be a good neighbor. The base had only been open a few months when the Nike Site offered to sponsor a local youngster in the regional Pinewood Derby competition. Gerald Howell was selected and went to the regional competition under the sponsorship of the Army and Cofer Motor Co.

Colonels who commanded the missile site were much in demand as knife-and-fork speakers at local civic club meetings, and the Smithfield Rotary Club was invited to meet at the missile site. Its members were given a tour of the facility, including the underground silos housing missiles, then ate dinner in the mess hall.

The Army flew 23 dignitaries from Hampton Roads to a base in the western part of the country to watch the firing of Nike missiles. Smithfield Mayor Howard W. Gwaltney was among them.

And several years into its operation, the Nike Site began holding annual open house tours for the public. Those of us in Cub Scout Pack 3 went as a unit and were awe-struck by the trip down into the underground silo housing the missiles.

You can’t put 200 young soldiers in a community without social contacts occurring, and sure enough, local girls dated boys from all parts of the country. Some eventually married and the county’s military connection continued to grow.

The missile site’s needs also helped meet local needs. A narrow, wooden bridge that crossed Jones Creek about a mile north of the site was considered unsafe for heavy equipment and VDOT (back then known as the Highway Department) agreed to replace it and pave two sections of dirt road serving the Army facility and surrounding community. 

The missile site’s life was short, however. As the nation’s defense strategy evolved with rapidly changing technology, the Army began phasing out Nike missile launch sites. Carrollton was the first in the area to go. The announcement came in December 1960, six years after the facility opened.

The county did get a new bridge across Jones Creek, but it wasn’t completed until mid-1960, about the same time the Army left the missile site for the last time.

In 1972, 12 years after the Nike Site was closed, the property was turned over to Isle of Wight County for use as a park. The primary Army buildings remain, and the county recently obtained a Nike missile, which, when restored, will be mounted near the entrance of the popular Carrollton Nike Park.

Military historians and armchair would-be analysts love to debate the effectiveness of the Nike-Ajax and Hercules systems. Supporters say the approximately 300 bases around the country provided an effective deterrent to the Soviets, while others say they could not have stopped an attack.

Thank God we never had to find out.

But for just over a half decade, Isle of Wight enjoyed a neighborly relationship with the nation’s first line of defense, and it helped shape, in a positive way, the county’s future.

 

John Edwards is publisher emeritus of The Smithfield Times. His email address is j.branchedwards@gmail.com.