The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on May 21 to approve an operating agreement between Pima County and the Arizona Aerospace Found for the Titan Missile Museum in Sahuarita.
The agreement is last step in Pima County becoming the official owners of the museum. The county's takeover has been in the works since November of 2022, according to a news release from Pima County.
While the county will own the property, the Arizona Aerospace Foundation will continue to operate the site, according to Aaron Mergenthal, property management supervisor for Pima County’s Real Property Services.
"They have done an amazing job maintaining the integrity of the site for many years," Mergenthal said in the news release.
The Titan Missile Museum is the last out of 54 Titan II missile sites that is open to the public. The sites were part of a network on-line during the Cold War, capable of launching a nine-megaton thermonuclear warhead in less than a minute, the news release said.
The Sahuarita site was taken off alert in 1982. The process to turn it into a museum began in 1983. It officially opened in 1986 with the AAF at the helm. The museum was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994.
