The Last Resident

From a distance, they look like hills. Row after row of gentle green mounds rising from the South Dakota prairie, stretching almost as far as the eye can see.

Get closer and the blast doors give it away.

Igloo was built in 1942 as the Black Hills Ordnance Depot — a top-secret military installation constructed to store bombs, artillery shells, and ammunition for World War II. At its peak, over 800 concrete igloo bunkers dotted the prairie, tended by a community of military personnel and civilian workers who built an entire town to support the operation — housing, schools, churches, a bowling alley, a movie theater.

When the depot closed in 1967, the town closed with it. Residents were given weeks to pack and leave. The igloos stayed behind — too expensive to demolish, too dangerous to ignore.

Today the bunkers still stand in their long silent rows. The prairie is slowly pulling them back under.

Igloo, South Dakota. Built to store the weapons of a World War. Abandoned to the grassland when the wars moved on.


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