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All Of The American Film Reels Are Stored Inside This Former Nuclear Bunker

The Library of Congress preserves its movie, television, and audio collection, comprising of a whopping 6.3 million pieces in the Audiovisual Conservation Center. The history of the site in question is quite fascinating. The bunker was used to store cash amounting to $4 billion by the Federal Reserve.

 

Image Source: Brookings

 

The Culpeper Switch, as it was called, was built on the outskirts of the small town Culpeper in Virginia. Completed in 1969, the 135,000 square feet facility was named the Communications and Records Center for the Federal Reserve System. The structure was considered the world’s largest single-floor vault at the time.

 

Image Source: Brookings

 

The Culpeper Switch was to be used as the Federal Reserve Headquarters by the US in the event of a nuclear war with the USSR. The facility also housed the state-of-the-art national computer network, called the FedWire. The system was used by the banks to communicate with each other. The building was later donated to the Library of the Congress.

 

Image Source: Federal Reserve

 

Today, miles of shelves in the bunker are stacked with film reels while the building is also used to store different machines used for printing, repairing, and processing the film.

 

 

You can take a tour of the historic site used to store all the national hits, from Casablanca to The Revenant in this video:

 

 

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