The Yellow Water (Missile) Launcher?
My father, Alec P. Vaughan, Jr. worked as an administrator in the housing division of NAS Cecil Field for at least three decades beginning in the 1950’s until retiring. While he did not work across the street in the heavily guarded and quite secretive Yellow Water Weapons Storage area, he had occasion to get clearance to see their needs for furniture. As the area was being dismantled and it was a known fact that it was no longer to be used for weapons storage, he was able to talk about it freely. It was then and only then that he spoke of about interesting tales concerning his short visits. He told of the train he rode to various bunkers, talked about hearing soldiers shooting on a practice range, swimming in a huge pool, explained the heavily guarded bunkers, offices, gated entries, and shared information that only one who had seen it would know. It was so interesting to hear about a secretive site right there in our backyard on the westside of Jacksonville. All of those years he knew of it and not a word until it was being phased out and decommissioned in 1999.
It was George H. W. Bush administration that signed the paper work confirming the Cold War ending, and the very last remaining weapons at Yellow Water were taken by truck to Pantex Plant in Texas. The last of the nuclear weapons were removed from the Yellow Water Weapons storage area in Jacksonville, Florida in October of 1993.
Fast forward to the summer of 2022. The desire to see the bunkers and photograph the once important Yellow Water Storage facility was on my mind so I traveled to the area and seeing a Sheriff’s “No Trespassing” sign I turned away in disappointment. Over the next weeks, I asked a police officer friend if he knew anything about the site and surprisingly, he told me that he actually knew the man in charge and would reach out to him. From that, I met this person who set up a time in June of that year for my daughter and me to ride the land without hindrance. To make it easy, we all rode in the front seat of his truck. The ride took us to see a firing range, swimming pool, huge cinder block buildings, warehouses, left-over logs and rails from a once railroad detail and more. While most of the area was open by this time, this person had the key to every site on the land. It was just great.
I had seen online an area that I really wanted to see and photograph and that was the area where I thought was used to “launch missiles”. ( There was never such a place, by the way!). The driver told us that no missiles were ever launched from there nor set up for that purpose as it was strictly to “store” missiles. With that comment, I showed him on my phone what I was talking about having downloaded it from the Internet. He laughed and said he would take us to that very site and did.
Before taking us inside the building, he took us around back to a huge round cistern with an iron ladder. He encouraged us to climb up and look in. We did. It was a waterproof and sealed tank prepared to collect and store water. The reservoir was huge and still holding to the top. When we came down he took us inside the front area that had metal electric boxes, a couple of small rooms and panels with dozens of buttons, dials, pressure gauges, lamp tabs, and an actual red reset button. I thought we had gotten to see the launcher only to find out that it only launched water. It was the panel used to indicate water pressure, level, and water plant flow. One button could be pushed to send water in one direction while another button could divert the water elsewhere, close it off or keep it stable. We all have a good laugh.
Now, fast forward to 2026 when I posted on the Facebook Yellow Water site these photos only to read this from a contributor (Bob) that said he knew someone who patrolled the site and….
“came across a woman in this area one day who swore to him that this is where they launched the nuclear weapons. He said, “she was dead serious!” I confirmed to Bob that woman was me.
I now know, this was actually just the water treatment plant. launching water.
See you tomorrow,
Sources: Google AI Overview, The Florida Times Union, Facebook, Yellow Water Nuclear Weapons Facility at Cecil Field, Vaughan Publishing, Nannette V. Ramey
