Placed in a series to honor our friend Michigan Chris' 20,000th find.
Ever since he moved to the Chicago area he quickly became friends with many of the area cachers. Either by many seeing his logs from his many hunts or from the very nice ammo can hides in the SW Suburbs.
Nobody is very surprised at his rocketing numbers as he is an ambitious cacher in a cache rich area.
I had been looking at this area for a cache placement and when I was asked to contribute to his 20,000th find cache series I knew it was the perfect subject area for the placement. :)
Nike Missile Site (C-44)
Nike Ajax missiles were surface to air missiles designed to defend Chicago and vital steel industry located in the region during the turbulent years of the Cold War.
Two areas around Wolf Lake were used to create Nike Missile Site C-44. It was one of many such sites that formed a ring of defense running from Indiana to Wisconsin. On the northwest side of the lake where this cache is placed, several hundred acres of wetlands were filled with ferrous slag landfill to create the actual site for the missiles. This is currently Eggers Woods, part of the Cook County Forest Preserves system. On the southwest side of the lake was located the radar station for the site. It is currently the William W. Powers State Recreation Area (Illinois). Both sites were decommissioned in the 1970s, yet artifacts remain in place of their respective locations.
Please do follow the additional waypoints as it will make for a nice walk on trail for the most part and will allow you to explore the area where the launchers were located.
Too Cool! :)
While in the area be sure to visit the other companion caches in this series...
Nike Missile Site (C-44) - Radar Site
Nike Missile Site (C-44) - The Warhead