A Fallout shelter is a shelter built underground to protect people from radioactive fallout.

In the 1960's the government approached Mr. Richard Olsen when it was believed that the Soviet Union had targeted home of the Strategic Air Command nuke-packing bombers and the command center for three Titan intercontinental ballistic missile complexes, which is now Mountain Home Air Force Base. This was part of The Cold War.

The Government made a highway 75 to the cave in return for its use as a shelter and to store food if the area came under atomic attack. It was stocked with enough food for 8,000 people. In the late 1980's all the food was removed. Although a sign on the highway still directs motorists to the "Mammoth Cave Civil Defense Shelter" at the other end of the road the government built, for many years it has not been a Civil Defense shelter.