His words fueled the fires of people everywhere to build fall-out shelters in their back yards. The cold war exploded as Khrushchev experimented with atomic power as evidenced by exploding mushroom clouds..

In November of 1961 the Soviets tested a 60-megaton bomb, 7,000 times bigger than those tested by the United States in Nevada. The Cuban Missile Crisis added to the fuel of apocalypse approaching..

Never without the enterprising impulse in people ready to make a dime or two, businesses making and selling fall-out shelters sprang up all over the country. Stephenville had its own Peace-O-Mind Shelter Company big enough to be mentioned in nation wide publication.

I asked Brad Thompson about the company and the attitudes of people here in Stephenville. He said the business was located just east of town next to the Porter tomato place.

(We were living in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, at the time, in the back yard of all the experimenting with bombs and rockets. I don’t remember that the excitement grew too much in those years-though I’m sure many ranchers in the area stashed a few groceries in natural caves on their land.)

“Two of the metal shelters would fit on a big flatbed truck, and we would see them being delivered around town and shipped out,” said Mr. Thompson. I asked him about the size and design of the shelters.

“They were about 6 X 10 feet with an added stairway. The stairway had to make a 90 degree angle before entrance as the rays couldn’t turn corners. They traveled in straight lines. Some stairways made two turns just to make sure.”

At Lions Club meeting someone asked Jack Arthur if he intended to put in a shelter. Said Brad, “He thought a bit and then said, ‘No. I’m not going to stay around to start this mess over again.’”

Mr. Arthur’s point of view seemed to be that of most people. They didn’t want to be among few survivors to clean up the chaos and carry on.

As in every other crisis, a few stinkers were around to take advantage of people. Some sold sites, dug holes in back yards and then disappeared without completing the contracts.

Bill and Marie Johnson had a fall-out shelter in their back yard. Marie said Bill became alarmed after the president made his speech. He didn’t buy a ready-made model. He built the forms and poured concrete to make his own.

Marie showed me their shelter. “We had bunk beds, food, light. We even had water and a telephone.” They sometimes slept in the module when threatening clouds came. But it soon became too crowded for sleeping when all the people on the block came to escape storms. Some would phone to alert the Johnsons and beat them to the cellar.

The true fallout shelters were equipped with rations and guns to keep neighbors out. Expecting to stay for several days or weeks, people were taught to forget the rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Newspapers, radios, television, government agencies, urged families to be vigilant. One documentary showed a dad explaining to his family, “If there’s an explosion, we’ll wait about a minute and then I’ll go up to take a look.”

I asked Brad Thompson if people felt panic as they do with the terrorist threat of today. “I don’t think it was panic any more than now. We don’t feel panic, just a little fear, an awareness of possible danger.”

So what happened to all the shelters? They were put to other uses, dug up, used by museums, whatever. What happened to the fear? Negotiations and adjustments seemed to have worked.

Is there a point to all this? History hides many little interesting bits of information. I never did find out who owned the Piece-O-Mind Shelter Company, but the fact that Stephenville was mentioned in Smithsonian Magazine as the site caused me to do the follow-up to find some facts. As ever, Brad Thompson is a good source of local history. “Thank you, sir. Now if you will just find that picture of Bunyon school…”