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What Elon Musk Got Wrong About Why Federal Retirement Is Still Managed out of a Limestone Mine
The massive underground facility, which has been used to store archives since the 1960s, remains a crucial but convoluted hub for US government records.
While Musk’s comment about elevator dependency is overstated—the mine has many entrances and exits, as well as a road leading in and out that golf carts and other vehicles can drive on—his general point about inefficiencies within the federal retirement process is true. The Office of Personnel Management, which functions as the human resources department of the US government, tells retirees to expect a three- to five-month wait to process their applications. And retirement paperwork for federal employees does route through a storage facility in a repurposed limestone mine in rural Boyers, about 50 miles north of Pittsburgh.
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The Civil Service Commission, the predecessor of the OPM, started mailing retirement files to Boyers in 1960 with the intent to archive them “forever.” The CSC was one of many agencies that took advantage of repurposed mines and caves during the Cold War, seeking enhanced protection for sensitive materials in the event of a nuclear catastrophe.
The Boyers mine was operational from 1902 to roughly 1959 under the helm of US Steel. When high operating costs and dwindling demand for limestone caused the business to decline in the 1950s, US Steel employee Larry Yont saw an opportunity to repurpose the site as a storage facility and, with the help of civil engineer and mine superintendent Russell Mitchell, went on to found National Underground Storage. It was later bought by the company Iron Mountain in 1998, which owns and leases the Boyers mine to this day.
Along with the Civil Service Commission, other federal agencies, including the National Archives, the Office of Civil Defense (the precursor to the Federal Emergency Management Agency), and the Social Security Administration began storing records in the Boyers facility around the same time. J. G. Franz, then office manager of the Boyers mine, told a newspaper reporter in 1966 that federal agencies have “backup equipment for everything” stored in a special area of Boyers to protect the records in the event of nuclear fallout.
Franz told a local newspaper that workers “hope we will never have to worry about a nuclear explosion,” but that if one happened, the mine would be safely sealed off, according to newspaper archives reviewed by WIRED. “The mine is equipped with a 30-day supply of food and supplies for all of the employees.”
At the time, the staff at Boyers were reportedly able to process about 600 pounds of records each day bussed to the facility straight from Washington, DC. They relied on the recently constructed interstate highway system for timely deliveries. In fact, the federal government built an exit off Pennsylvania’s Interstate 80 specifically for “quick access to the mine in case of an emergency,” according to an article in the Pittsburgh Press.
There are other practical benefits that make old mines a good place to store records. For one, their typically rural and secluded settings create a layer of natural security from other types of threats. Repurposed mines provide “excellent fire protection,” and immunity from events like “flood, theft, civil disorder, aircraft crashes, tornadoes, lightning,” noted a 1999 Iron Mountain presentation for the National Archives.
Carmichael tells WIRED that access to the underground facilities he’s visited tend to be tightly controlled, often through heavily guarded entrances. These facilities also frequently have maze-like designs that would likely discourage or confuse thieves if they somehow got inside.
Several current managers of repurposed limestone mines told WIRED that their caves are naturally between 55 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit, optimal temperature for most storage situations. John Smith, director of industrial real estate for the company that manages the limestone storage facility Carefree Industrial Park near Kansas City, Missouri, said that this means utility costs are “dramatically lower” compared to above-ground facilities. His main expenses are associated with ventilation, since caves tend to be very humid.
