Richboro Nike Missile Battery

During the nineteen fifties and sixties, the skies above Philadelphia were defended by a ring of Nike missile batteries, and this site in Richboro was one of them. Designated Philadelphia-Seven, it was one of thirteen installations ringing the metropolitan area, all designed to intercept Soviet bombers before they could reach the city.

The system worked like this: radar tracked incoming aircraft, and if a threat was confirmed, Ajax anti-aircraft missiles would be guided to intercept and destroy the target before it reached its objective. The technology was a product of the early Cold War, when both the United States and Soviet Union were rapidly expanding their air forces. By the mid-nineteen sixties, as intercontinental ballistic missiles replaced bombers as the primary threat, the Nike system became obsolete. The Richboro battery was later deactivated. The launch area and missile magazine remain near this site.