The Rocket is a towering landmark on the South Carolina state fairgrounds in Columbia that, in some years, has been painted to highlight local organizations or causes.
Photo by Forrest Clonts
"Meet your momma at the Rocket" is as ubiquitous a phrase in South Carolina as "Go 'Cocks" or "Dang, it's hot."
When the South Carolina State Fair opens this month in Columbia for its annual 10-day run, the Rocket will once again become a rallying point for family and friends from across the state.
But the Rocket has a darker side. It's actually a nuclear missile.
Specifically, it is a 1950s-era medium-range ballistic missile that, when armed, was capable of devastating Russian cities from 1,500 miles away. If detonated over the fairgrounds, the mushroom cloud alone would be about a mile wide. (But trust there's no danger of that.)
The Jupiter-class missile was designed to carry a 1.5-megaton nuclear warhead 75 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II. The team that designed it was led by Wernher von Braun, a former German Nazi officer recruited by the United States after the war to help lead America's ascension into space.
The Jupiter missiles' presence in Europe was central to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union deployed nuclear missiles just 90 miles from the Florida coast. In particular, the 70-foot-tall rocket named Columbia was decommissioned in 1963 after the U.S. quietly removed the Jupiters from Turkey—a secret deal that helped defuse the crisis.
The rocket was donated to Columbia (the city) by the U.S. Air Force later that year "to stand as a monument to deterrence, adding prestige to the glorious military traditions of South Carolina," Air Force Maj. Gen. Emmett B. Cassidy announced at the time.
But it was six years before the missile was erected at the fairgrounds, according to the book "Meet Me at the Rocket" by Rodger Stroup.
Before the Rocket arrived, the annual football game between the University of South Carolina and Clemson University defined the fair. The game was played from 1896 until 1959 on a Thursday during the fair.
Big Thursday, as the game day was called, was so popular that it was proclaimed a state holiday, culminating in the State Ball that evening. It was played in USC's football stadium across from the fairgrounds until Clemson complained that Big Thursday gave the Gamecocks an unfair home field advantage.
The game was scrapped in favor of an annual home-and-home tilt at the end of the season, which is still played today.
The missile was erected at the fairgrounds 10 years after Big Thursday's demise and has since become a defining symbol of the fair. It was placed near the Rosewood Drive entrance and soon became a rallying post for guests and a waypoint for lost children. The public address announcer will broadcast across the fairgrounds for friends to gather there and for wandering little ones to "meet your momma at the Rocket."
In 2015, the Rocket was raised on a 12-foot platform so it could be seen above trees that didn't exist when it was first erected. After all, you can't meet your momma at the Rocket if you can't see it, the fair's then-manager Gary Goodman told The State newspaper at the time.
For the past decade, the Rocket has occasionally been brightly painted, often to highlight charitable organizations or anniversaries. This year, it has been refurbished and painted with its original military design, an homage to its past.
From a lethal weapon during the Cold War to a beacon for lost children, the Rocket is a South Carolina icon and an indelible part of the state's collective soul.
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South Carolina State Fair
When: Oct. 15–25.
Tickets: $20 at the gate, discounts for purchases online and at Circle K stores. $15 for seniors, and free for children 5 years old and younger.
On opening day, all tickets are $5.
More info: scstatefair.org