Nike missiles

From 1954 to 1975, the U.S. Army maintained Nike missile sites in the Marin Headlands, as well as in other parts of the San Francisco Bay Area and in other regions of the country. Today, the site known as SF-88L is the only remaining Nike missile site in the country, and is currently a National Park Service museum. But when it was operational, it was a highly-secure site that maintained both Nike Ajax convention missiles, and Nike Hercules missiles, which could carry either conventional or nuclear warheads.

These missiles were seen as a last line of defense against nuclear bombers with which the Soviet Union might have attacked the U.S. during the Cold War.