"There were microphones," Conte says. The north entrance to the Greenbrier gives no clues to a secret bunker for Congress. The bunker, a vast box protected by 5-foot-thick concrete walls and 18- to 25-ton blast doors, was built under the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia To understand why and even how this bunker was built — right under the noses of America's vacationing aristocrats — you have to go back to the mid-1950s, when a whole industry built around the construction of fall-out shelters started to take off. "If you're a normal member of Congress, my guess is that you know nothing. If the bunker is roughly two underground football fields, why did we see no more than half the square footage? There were a few weird coincidences that Conte noticed before the bunker's existence was exposed by the Washington Post in 1992. It's a giant concrete box nestled into a hillside in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. People didn’t say anything to outsiders, ” Hylton said. )", © 2020 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC Terms of Use/Privacy Policy. For one thing, it was built as an addition to one of America's most famous luxury resorts, the Greenbrier Resort in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. "I guess I always took it at face value that it was all data storage, but you're probably right to be suspicious," he said. Among his interviewees was the first general manager of Forsythe's Greenbrier operation, John Londis, then 76 and retired in Florida. LEWISBURG, WV (WVNS) -- A new education program is being introduced in Greenbrier County next month. The purchasing is staggered as this round included the approval to purchase 12 sets at $37,700. Before that building boom, however, another secret bunker lay in wait for the apocalypse, behind a giant reinforced steel door. In the Greenbrier's public exhibition hall, a not-so-secret entrance leads to the bunker. Through the tunnel and behind this 30 ton concrete and steel door, Congress members would seek refuge from a nuclear bomb before the bunker was exposed in 1992. A recent speaking invitation from the West Virginia Bankers Association became a no-brainer once I learned the venue. Today, we were told, the bunker is used for data storage by CSX IP, a division of the successor of the C&O Railroad that once owned Greenbrier. We Insist: A Timeline Of Protest Music In 2020. The two-foot thick walls of the bunker were made of reinforced concrete ... AT&T provided phone service for both The Greenbrier Hotel and the bunker. "All they had for private items that you could lock up were a small drawer, right underneath the beds, you could put your personal items in here," Conte says.