Thirty miles south of Louisville, Kentucky, lies Fort Knox, one of the most secure vaults in the world, and home to nearly 5,060 tons (4,580 metric tons) of gold. This week, Tidbits takes a look at the history of this famous gold depository.
- Fort Knox hasn’t always been home to much of the nation’s gold supply. Its original purpose when construction began in July, 1918, was as a military training camp to train World War I soldiers along with a U.S. Army base. Fort Knox didn’t become the storage place for gold until 1936. Its name was selected to honor Henry Knox, Chief of Artillery during the Revolutionary War and the first U.S. Secretary of War.
- The entire facility sits on 109,000 acres, but the depository itself is not very big, 105 feet by 121 feet. The walls of the edifice are constructed from 4-ft-thick granite that is lined with cement, steel, and fireproof materials, strong enough to endure an atomic bomb hit.
- The security at Fort Knox is unparalleled. Its location alone is its first defense, in a remote area in inland Kentucky that is difficult to come close to without being seen. The outer perimeter is equipped with motion sensors, then another barrier with a 10-foot-high electric fence, and a blast-proof door. The next area is protected by surveillance cameras and a large guard of U.S. Mint Police. An additional 30,000 military personnel are stationed nearby, along with tanks, helicopters, and military vehicles. The facility has a biometric access system, which uses physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, facial recognition, or eyes for admittance. Trip wires are installed throughout the facility. Intruders who might possibly manage to get past these security measures will be stuck in areas that are flooded upon command.
• The extraordinary vault is located underground at the facility, secure from outside threats, both human and natural, including earthquakes. The door to the vault is 21 inches thick, and weighs nearly 22 tons, and is torch- and drill-resistant. It is no easy task to access the vault, as no single person knows the complete procedure. A team of people all must enter different combinations, and these passcodes change every day.
•The gold inside Fort Knox represents about 56% of the U.S. total reserves. The remainder is distributed across multiple facilities, including West Point, New York, and Denver, Colorado.
• Each gold bar weighs 27.5 lbs. and measures 7 inches long and 3.5 inches wide.
- There are two estimates of the worth of the gold inside Fort Knox, book value and market value. The U.S. Government holds to the value of gold set by the Par Value Modification Act of 1973, that of $42.22 per ounce, a book value of $6.22 billion, a price that has never been updated. Current market gold prices of nearly $5,000 per ounce place the value at about $736 billion.
- What is in the vault besides 147,341,858 troy ounces of gold? Originals of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address are secured within its walls.
- So who actually enters the vault? No one! Members of Congress visited in 1974 to check the gold reserves. The last full physical audit took place in 1953. Only one U.S. President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, has been inside.
