Iron Mountains, Boyers

Iron Mountain Incorporated is one of the world’s leading data management companies, and its most famous high-security storage facility lies more than 200 feet underground in the former mining town of Boyers, Pennsylvania. Among the priceless materials stored in the former mine is the Corbis photographic collection, now owned by Bill Gates. The Iron Mountain Company was founded by Herman Knaust, a businessman who had made his fortune in mushroom farming and marketing. In 1936, he forked out US$9,000 to purchase a defunct iron ore mine and 10 acres of surrounding land in Livingstone, New York. It was, Knaust was convinced, the ideal setting for mushroom cultivation on an industrial scale. But by 1950 the bottom had fallen out of the mushroom market and Knaust spotted a new opportunity. The World War II and the Cold War had focused attention on the need to preserve official records in locations secure from military attack or other disasters. The one-time “Mushroom King” renamed his mine and founded Iron Mountain Atomic Storage, Inc. Meanwhile, the town of Boyers in Butler County, Pennsylvania, was a once-thriving mining community that had dug all it could out of the ground. From 1954 onward, various organizations began to use its former limestone mines as storage facilities. After Iron Mountain went through a rapid phase of expansion on the 1980s and 1990s, the company bought one of these sites in 1998 from National Underground Storage for a little short of US$40 million. It is in many respects the company’s flagship branch. About 130 acres of the mine are now devoted to climate- controlled storage, with clients ranging from the Corbis photographic library to US government departments, and from movie companies to the National Archives. The facility is entirely protected from the elements, geologically stable and resistant to bombing. On the approach to Iron Mountain, visitors are greeted by armed guards, who check their credentials and give their vehicles a thorough inspection. Entry to the complex is via large steel gates and guests must be accompanied by and official escort at all times. Security systems, including extensive surveillance, are in the operation throughout the facility—not even Bill Gates gets into Iron Mountain on a nod or a wink!