In Hobart, Indiana, just 40 mile southeast of Chicago, you'll find Blastcamp, Paintball and Airsoft.

A popular combat sports arena and one of the oldest in the country.

My name is Virgil Frey.

I own and operate Blastcamp Paintball and Airsoft in Hobart, Indiana.

The original owners of Blastcamp came up with the idea that this would be a great place to do this new paintball thing.

So they reached out and purchased the property in 1987.

Blastcamp opened up in 1988.

That makes it one of the longest running paintball and airsoft fields in the country.

But behind the layers of paint splatter and spent airsoft BBs lies a much more serious component, in stark contrast to Blastcamp's fun atmosphere.

We're located on a decommissioned Nike missile base, Nike Missile Base C-47 The Nike Hercules guided missile system, is a powerful component of the U.S.

Army's air defense arsenal.

During the Cold War, the property where Blastcamp sits was designated as Nike Missile Site C-47 and was operated by the US Army Air Defense Command.

The Nike Missile Program was basically a missile program that protected the domestic USA from Russia.

If they had come over to bomb us during the Cold War.

The Cold War was really a war of ideas, a war of ideology, the capitalist world versus a communist world.

So the United States and the Soviet Union were allied during the Second World War.

And once the war was over, the Cold War emerged, and it was amplified by the existence of nuclear weapons.

We dropped two bombs on Japan in 1945.

By 1949, the Soviet Union had tested an atomic bomb.

That first Soviet test kicked off a decades long arms race between the two superpowers.

Atomic Panic ran so deep in the 1950s that official policies were put into place to protect the public.

Fallout shelters were designated.

Families built their own backyard bunkers, and educational films were even produced to teach children how to protect themselves in the event of a nuclear attack.

Music: “Duck and Cover” This is an official Civil Defense film produced in cooperation with the Federal Civil Defense Administration.

And I do remember the bell going off.

And, you know, we had tornado drills and had fire drills, and they had these duck and cover drills.

Each one had its own different sound.

And so when we heard the duck cover drill, yeah, we had to duck and get under our desks.

I remember my mom and dad telling me that you're going to get drafted when you're 18 and all that, so that certainly was on my mind.

It was all peace and love by the time I was born.

Now that Russia had entered the nuclear age alongside the US, the country began devising ways to defend itself from what was seen as an inevitable strike.

Project Nike became the top solution.

It was a defense program put into place by Bell Industries.

It was programmed to create the supersonic rings of steel around heavily populated areas.

For example, here in northwest Indiana, there were about 32 Nike missile bases.

Nike Missile Base C-47 protected Chicagoland area.

So if they would have came to bomb, let's say the, the steel mills in Gary or downtown Chicago.

This base would have protected them.

Nike Missile Site C40 seven is nestled in an area called the Calumet Region, historically known for its heavy industry in northwest Indiana.

It falls along the south shore of Lake Michigan, where heavy industry took advantage of the cool water and the Great Lakes system.

And so it was a target.

At first, the Nike bases were welcomed additions to communities and helped lessen the anxiety of nuclear annihilation.

But as the years went on, both public perception and technological development shifted.

There was much more awareness of the dangers of having some of these sites within populated areas.

At first, people didn't know what they were.

You know, something going off in their backyard.

They liked the idea of there being protected by the federal government, the military bases, at the same time its one of those not in my backyard kind of situations.

So as people were protesting a number of things in the 1960s for civil rights, for against the Vietnam War, they were also, really calling out the dangers of, of nuclear weapons and actually nuclear energy in many cases.

By the 1970s, the Nike missiles themselves were outdated.

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs, were becoming the standard way of deploying nuclear weapons.

Nike missiles were only capable of shooting down high altitude bombers and not suborbital ICBMs.

Project Nike lasted from about 1956, 7, 8 Somewhere in that vicinity.

Most of the Nike bases were all decommissioned by the mid 70s.

They were just outdated.

Most Nike bases were demolished and their property sold to private entities who built shopping centers, neighborhoods, and highways on top of what was once the world's most sophisticated defense system.

However, C-47 was spared this fate and now hosts a different kind of conflict, fought with paintballs and plastic BBs this time around and not nuclear warheads.

Here at Blastcamp, we offer just about every type of combat sport you could want from airsoft, magfed paintball.

We do tournament paintball like professional level tournament paintball.

For example, today we have actually the high school football team, local high school football team coming out just to kind of kick off their season.

You know, they got all the seniors.

So they they treat them to a day of paintball and teambuilding, whether these players know it or not, the abandoned buildings they run through and take cover behind are pieces of an intense chapter of both American and world history.

Their fun day out is helping preserve this site for future generations to enjoy and learn from.

You know, being a National Park ranger, I'm of the mindset.

I don't care who's preserving a site as long as somebody is.

I would have never thought of something like Blastcamp as a as a mechanism to preserve a site.

From what I can see, just walking the ground, it's a fabulous use of the, of the property.

As a historian, I embrace preservation.

And if they want to preserve it through play, I'm all for it.

I'm all for it.

I don't see a lot of, you know, changes to the building, so it looks like they're preserving it.

Remember what you do, friends.

Now tell me right out loud, what are you supposed to do when you see the flash?

Duck and cover!

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