Remnants of Bumper blockhouse from 1st Florida rocket launch unearthed by UCF students
Cloaked by choking green vegetation, a small exposed patch of concrete caught the eye of college students and volunteers searching off an anthill-dotted dirt lane for signs of the Bumper 8 blockhouse at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
After chopping away thorny brush and thick roots with hacksaws and shears, the University of Central Florida archaeological team cleared the 20-by-20-foot foundation of the crudely built structure at historic Launch Complex 3.
This makeshift blockhouse marks where technicians launched Bumper 8 on July 24, 1950 — America's first rocket from the Cape.
"This is just incredible. We've got the Marsten matting located at the rear of this. Right now, that's one of the most exciting parts to me," said Jamie Draper, director of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum, standing atop the concrete foundation.
An archaeological mystery: UCF students study blockhouse site from Cape's 1st rocket launch
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"This is where the first launch was coordinated by the launch crew in a very improvised-looking blockhouse — a tarpaper shack of a structure. And here it is. This is so cool. I've wanted to see this for quite some time," Draper said.
"The jungle consumed it. That's what happens in Florida. Just to uncover it like this, it's very Hollywood-esque," he said.
Since late January, the Bumper blockhouse site has been targeted by about 20 students with the University of Central Florida's Department of Anthropology. They systematically surveyed and GPS-mapped a 700- to 900-square-meter grid across abandoned Launch Complex 3, digging periodic "shovel test pits" to study what lies below the surface.
The concrete foundation was found, cleared of soil and vegetation, and briefly studied during the students' final week of field work, which wrapped up Wednesday. Discoveries include nails, thick window glass shards, wires, cables and pieces of the blockhouse viewing-periscope mirror, said Tom Penders, Space Launch Delta 45 cultural resources manager.
Penders said he is "amazed" by the level of interest across the Space Coast in the ongoing Bumper 8 blockhouse aerospace archaeological project. Activities planned through the UCF students' 2024 spring field season:
● A crew will use ground-penetrating radar to survey a field carpeted in cacti, brush and saw palmetto that lies between the blockhouse site and the concrete launch pad.
Penders hopes this GPR sweep will relocate buried utility lines that linked the blockhouse with the pad. A shovel test pit revealed underground cables a few weeks ago.
● Students will reclaim the blockhouse site's immediate surroundings from thick vegetation so the area will be ready for visitors for the upcoming 75th anniversary of the Bumper 8 launch.
In sum, the archaeological project's findings could become eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, Penders said.
The original wood-frame Bumper "firing room" was built in May and June 1950 about 400 feet from the launch pad, according to the Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum website. Penders said the military's historical record contains scant details.
"Usually, there are a lot of master plans, general plans, aerial photographs. But this, it was so early in the program — and they were going so fast to get missiles launched to beat Russia — that a lot of times stuff wasn't documented," Penders said.
NASA history buffs have reported a blockhouse concrete pad was spotted in 1998 and 2015, but vegetation had overrun the property. Now, amid the formal archaeological study, pieces of yellow tape mark a series of bolts lining the perimeter of the square-shaped foundation. These bolts anchored the blockhouse to the slab, Penders said.
During a FLORIDA TODAY visit to the site, UCF graduate student Kaley Haff handed Penders a few pieces of dark-colored material that had just been excavated from a shovel test pit about 1 meter off the foundation's west side. The pieces were unearthed beneath 20 centimeters, or nearly 8 inches, of dirt.
"That's part of the tarpaper roof, or side, of the blockhouse," Penders said, examining the pieces.
"Yes. That's a keeper," he said.
Nearby, a trio of UCF students sliced snaking tree roots and shoveled soil to reveal Marston matting, or perforated-steel planking used by the U.S. military to create temporary landing strips and runways during World War II. They also dug up an old Coke bottle.
For next year's field season, Penders hopes to locate the crash site of a B-52 Stratofortress long-range bomber that went down during the 1960s at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the military installation's former name.
Rick Neale is the South Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @RickNeale1
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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Blockhouse from Cape Canaveral's first launch located by UCF students
