18 Fort Knox Bullion Depository

LOCATION Kentucky, USA

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Louisville, Kentucky

SECRECY OVERVIEW High-security location: the world’s most famous gold bullion depository.

Although it is not even the largest gold bullion depository in the United States—an honor currently held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Kentucky’s Fort Knox is legendary for its extraordinary levels of security. Indeed, during the Second World War the site became home to some of the most valuable treasures and important documents in the world.

A classified facility, the Fort Knox bullion depository was constructed in 1936 for storing US gold reserves. Built by the Treasury Department, it now falls under the jurisdiction of the US Mint. Its first gold deposits arrived here by railroad in January 1937.

Each gold bar in the Fort Knox vaults measures 17.8 by 9.2 by 4.5 centimeters (7 by 3.6 by 1.8 in), and weighs in at 12.5 kilograms (27.5 lb). Today, gold holdings total about 3.9 million kilograms (150 million troy ounces), down from a peak in the Second World War of more than four times that amount. The Fort has also variously housed such important items as the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, along with the Hungarian crown jewels, a Magna Carta and a Gutenberg Bible. The Constitution and Declaration, moved for safekeeping in the early 1940s, were secured within a purpose-built bronze chest that weighed some 68 kilograms (150 lb) and made its journey under the watchful eyes of secret service agents and armed troops.

The depository is built over two stories, with a footprint of roughly 32 x 37 meters (105 x 121 ft). The original construction of the building required 750 tons of reinforced steel, 670 tons of structural steel, 1,500 cubic meters (16,000 cu ft) of granite and 10,500 cubic meters (113,000 cu ft) of concrete. Entry into the vault is via blast-proof doors 53 centimeters (21 in) thick and weighing over 20 tons. The vault is subdivided into numerous compartments sealed with tape and wax that reveal tampering if they are broken.

The building is, as one might expect, all but impenetrable to the uninvited. As well as state-of-the-art security systems (the finer details of which are tightly guarded), two sentry posts guard the gateway to the building, which is set into a steel fence. There are further guard boxes at each corner of the building. The guards, who are all members of the United States Mint Police (founded in 1792), are highly trained and not especially keen on calm dialogue with would-be intruders. In the basement of the building a firing range offers the guards a chance for a little extra target practice during their lunch hour. What is more, the Fort Knox military base just up the road is ready to offer extra muscle should it be required.

Admission to the vaults requires a combination code that is not known to any one individual, so several members of staff must be present to dial the correct code. The vault has a 104-hour time lock, and there is an escape tunnel for anyone unlucky enough to find themselves trapped inside once the lock has been set. Employees are legally bound not to disclose any details of the security mechanisms in operation and visits from the public are prohibited, without exception.

HARD KNOX The Bullion Depository’s sophisticated defense systems include guard towers, security cameras and perimeter fencing. There is believed to be an escape tunnel, should anyone be accidentally locked inside the vaults, but access only goes one way.

Operating at such a high level of security, it is perhaps inevitable that Fort Knox has aroused the interest of conspiracy theorists. Indeed, their suspicions have been intensified by the complete absence of large-scale movements of gold in or out of the facility for many years. The only gold that has been transferred has been in small samples to satisfy auditing protocols and purity control. So theories abound, ranging from claims that there is no gold left at Fort Knox because it was all moved to London, to suggestions that Fort Knox now stores objects belonging to little green men from outer space.

The idea that there may no longer be gold inside those granite and steel walls has particularly haunted the American psyche over the years. With the world then in financial meltdown, the idea that the vault was empty took hold in 1974 after the suggestion was made in a book attacking the broader financial system. Eventually a reluctant Treasury permitted a visit by selected members of the press to view the holdings and assuage the doubters. Needless to say, they were able to report that there was gold and plenty of it. It was the first time any member of the public had been allowed into Fort Knox’s vaults since 1943—and that member of the public had been the then-President, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1 GARRISON TOWN The bullion depository lies on the edge of the Fort Knox Army Post, a 44,000-hectare (109,000-acre) military base with a population of more than 12,000 soldiers and other staff ready to defend the nation’s gold reserves at a moment’s notice.

2 HEAVY DUTY Construction of the Fort Knox Army Post began in earnest in 1918. This permanent camp was named after Henry Knox, a Bostonian officer in the Continental Army during the American War of Independence who became the new nation’s first Secretary of War.

3 GOLDEN VISION The Depository at Fort Knox is estimated to store something approaching 2.5 percent of all the gold ever refined, although its holdings lag some way behind the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, which houses more than 4 percent of the historical total.