Minuteman Launch Facility Q-06 (Quebec-06 LF), Horse Creek / Chugwater Wyoming

Q-06 sat far enough from the preserved Quebec 01 control site that a casual traveler could miss its Cold War meaning entirely. From the road, it read as a fenced utility compound on open Wyoming ground. In the missile field, it was something else: one of Quebec Flight's unmanned launch facilities, first built for Minuteman, later altered for the most powerful operational U.S. land-based ICBM, and finally pulled back into the arms-control machinery that marked the end of the Peacekeeper era.

Launch Facility Q-06 was an unmanned missile silo / Launch Facility in Quebec Flight, controlled from Q-01, the Quebec 01 Missile Alert Facility / Launch Control Facility. The site belonged to the F.E. Warren Air Force Base missile field, the 90th Strategic Missile Wing during the Strategic Air Command era, and the 400th Strategic Missile Squadron / later 400th Missile Squadron during the Minuteman and Peacekeeper years. It was originally built for the LGM-30B Minuteman I, later served in the Minuteman III force, and was then converted for the LGM-118A Peacekeeper.

Public Peacekeeper site-photo documentation identifies the same site as Francis E. Warren AF Missile Site Q-06, Permanent Installation Number 9415, Installation Location Code GHYP, at 41-25-18, 105-00-56.

Q-06 lay on the open high plains northwest of Cheyenne, west-southwest of the Q-01 Missile Alert Facility and southwest of Chugwater. Its setting was typical of the F.E. Warren missile field: rural, widely spaced, and intentionally separated from other launch facilities and control sites. Dispersal mattered because Minuteman and later Peacekeeper were designed to survive not by being concentrated inside the base fence, but by being spread across a large missile field in Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado.

As a Launch Facility, Q-06 was normally unmanned. Missile combat crews worked from the underground Launch Control Center at Q-01, while maintenance teams, security forces, communications personnel, and other specialists visited the site when required. The surface installation was plain by design: fenced launch-facility grounds, an access road, utility and lighting features, security-related equipment, cathodic-protection equipment, hardened communications markers, and the belowgrade launcher structure. The site did not serve as a crewed command post; it was one of ten launch facilities assigned to Quebec Flight.

Public exterior photographs taken in 2013 show Q-06 before or during the broader post-Peacekeeper disposal period. The images document the fenced compound, power poles, a wind vane, cathodic-protection control box, HICS marker, and the silo-area surface features. Those photographs are useful because ordinary Peacekeeper launch facilities were later subject to treaty-driven elimination, and many individual LFs left only limited public documentation after the missile mission ended.

Q-06 is inactive and decommissioned. It is not a public historic site like Q-01. It was one of the 50 former F.E. Warren Peacekeeper launch facilities addressed by post-Peacekeeper arms-control and disposal planning. Public Air Force reporting in 2013 stated that the United States had chosen to permanently eliminate 50 previously deactivated F.E. Warren Peacekeeper launch facilities under New START. The planned method for the Warren Peacekeeper launch facilities was to fill the silos with earth and gravel, after which land disposition could proceed through first-refusal rights, government-agency offering, or public auction.

For the full Quebec Flight narrative, see Q-01 Missile Alert Facility / Launch Control Center

Chronology

• 1965-06 The 400th Strategic Missile Squadron, including Quebec Flight, became operational with Minuteman IB missiles.
• 1974-09-03 The 90th Strategic Missile Wing removed its last Minuteman IB from alert status.
• 1975 Minuteman III replaced Minuteman I at F.E. Warren; Minuteman II was not deployed at the base.
• 1986 Peacekeeper conversion brought former Minuteman facilities in Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, and Tango Flights into the only operational Peacekeeper missile field.
• 1986-10-10 The 90th Strategic Missile Wing had the first strategically postured Peacekeeper site.
• 1986-12-16 F.E. Warren reached initial operating capability for Peacekeeper.
• 1988 Fifty Peacekeeper missiles were in service at F.E. Warren.
• 2002 Peacekeeper deactivation began as part of the post-Cold War nuclear-force drawdown.
• 2005-09-19 The Peacekeeper missile mission ended at F.E. Warren; no Peacekeepers remained on strategic alert in the 400th Missile Squadron.
• 2011-02-05 New START entered into force.
• 2013-08-23 F.E. Warren announced permanent elimination of 50 previously deactivated Peacekeeper launch facilities.
• 2014-12 The Air Force's public plan called for elimination of F.E. Warren Peacekeeper launch facilities by December 2014.

Read about the Peacekeeper Missile at F.E. Warren AFB

All Peacekeeper Missile Silo Locations

All Minuteman/Peacekeeper Missile Silo Locations