Building 470 Building 470 — also called the Pilot Plant , or sometimes “ the Tower ” , or “ Anthrax Tower ” — was a notorious seven - story steel and brick building at Fort Detrick in Frederick , Maryland , USA , used in the small - scale production of biological warfare ( BW ) agents . The building , a Cold War era structure , was transferred from the Department of Defense to the National Cancer Institute - Frederick ( a unit of the National Institutes of Health ) in 1988 , to which it belonged until 2003 when it was demolished . Structure and design . Building 470 was the tallest structure on the Fort Detrick grounds and for many years was the tallest in Frederick County . The structure of the building was unique : a seven - story tower , the configuration of which was dictated by the two 2 , 500 - gallon , three - story high fermentors housed within . Although the building was hermetically sealed and negatively pressurized , false windows and window - sills were added to the exterior during construction in an effort to pass the unusually large structure off as a barracks or office building . Several of the floors of the building were catwalks ( steel grating ) , such that someone , for example , on the fifth floor looked down upon other workers three floors below . ( These tanks were used to perfect methods of bacteriological agent production and to provide a source of small amounts of these agents for the development and testing work done elsewhere on the facility . Production of anthrax in bulk for use in actual munitions was done at larger facilities in Arkansas and Indiana . ) The bottom two floors were , in the 1950s and ' 60s , where scientists showered and changed into street clothes after working with lethal agents . ( After work , they returned home to their families where they were prohibited from talking about their livelihood . ) A network of pipes fed into two large " kill tanks " in the basement , where unused biological agents were flushed and subjected to a treatment that rendered them harmless . The top floor contained a powerful ventilation system that kept the building at " negative pressure " ( air pressure outside was always greater than inside ) , a redundant safety feature . If a door to the outside was opened unintentionally , or if a crack appeared in a wall , air would rush in , not out . If any contaminants escaped into the building ' s hallways , they would not escape to the outside world . History . Construction and use . The U . S . Army Biological Warfare Laboratories constructed Building 470 in 1953 , at a cost of US $ 1 . 3 million , as a pilot plant for the production of biological agents as part of the United States ' offensive BW program . The program was a part of the nation ’ s Cold War defense against the generally understood threat of biological warfare . From 1954 to 1965 , the building was used for production of the bacteria " Bacillus anthracis " ( the cause of anthrax ) , " Francisella tularensis " ( the cause of tularemia ) , and " Brucella suis " ( a cause of brucellosis ) . Production of biological agents in Building 470 ceased in 1965 and all production and processing equipment were subsequently sterilized . In 1969 President Richard Nixon declared that the U . S . would unilaterally withdraw from the biological arms race , and turned over many Fort Detrick buildings to the National Institutes of Health ( NIH ) for cancer research . Many buildings ( although Building 470 was not yet among them ) that had been dedicated to BW research were then deeded to the National Cancer Institute ( NCI ) , decontaminated and renovated for use . In all , approximately on Fort Detrick were designated as a campus for the NCI . Laboratory work continued in Building 470 until 1970 , but no infectious agents were again produced there . Decommissioning . In 1970 , Building 470 was vacated and a thorough decontamination began . The final decontamination process was completed in June 1971 . Electric frying pans with a solid form of paraformaldehyde were placed throughout the building , then heated , releasing clouds of gas inside the sealed structure . Simulant bacteria , similar to anthrax , were left inside to serve as markers indicating whether or not the gas had worked . Thereafter , the Army carried out extensive testing and found no evidence of any of the biological agents previously produced there . Samples from approximately 1 , 500 locations throughout the building tested negative for " B . anthracis " . The Army declared the building safe for occupancy – although not for renovation – including by workers who had not been immunized against anthrax . In 1988 , the NCI acquired Building 470 as well with the expectation that it , too , might be remodeled and converted to cancer research laboratories . It had been vacant for 17 years , serving only as storage space where employees stashed files or excess lab supplies . Because of the unique ( and anachronistic ) design structure of the building , however , this was deemed to be prohibitively expensive . In September 2000 , safety experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Duke University , and Science Applications International Corporation reviewed the post - decontamination quality assurance test data and concluded that there was no evidence of any residual contamination in the building . The success of the decontamination was tested the following month , when examination of an additional 790 samples revealed no trace of living or dead " B . anthracis " . These samples were analyzed by either conventional culture methods or by polymerase chain reaction ( PCR ) , a more sensitive DNA - based test . Ultimately , Building 470 fell into alarmingly poor structural condition . The exterior mortar and brick of the building buckled and the roof leaked . Corroded beams and columns , cracked and peeling plaster , and blistering paint contributed to the disrepair of the building , which was in close proximity to several other buildings . It was determined that this deterioration could lead to significant structural failure and risk to adjacent buildings and the employees occupying them . Demolition . Due to the significant structural deterioration , the demolition of Building 470 was recommended in 1999 by NCI engineers . Carol Shearer , the 470 Project Engineer and an expert in dismantling former bioweapons facilities in the former Soviet Union , stated the main concern was not anthrax , but noise and vibration — and most importantly , the disruption of science in the adjoining and adjacent buildings . After an EIS and period for public comment , the state of Maryland approved removal of the building . The NIH dismantled the building between February and December 2003 . Officials did not concern themselves much with possible anthrax contamination , but concentrated rather on asbestos and lead paint . Urban legends . Residents of Frederick County are familiar with many stories about deaths occurring in Building 470 or as a result of working there . One of the more lurid stories had it that a dead man was sealed within its walls . According to Robert H . Wiltrout , associate director of the NCI - Frederick , the building , although “ an anachronism and a throwback , " was " a lightning rod for all of the things that happened at Fort Detrick " . One perennial tale held that because of a massive accident involving deadly biological agents , the government could never be entirely sure that the building was safe to occupy and therefore it was closed and sealed up . It had to be left standing because officials couldn ' t be sure the bacteria were truly gone . In fact , a large spill did occur in Building 470 in 1958 . A technician , trying to pry open a stuck valve at the bottom of a fermentor , unintentionally released approximately 2 , 000 gallons of liquid " B . anthracis " culture . Because of the design of the building and the safety measures in place , it was possible to isolate the spill to one room . There was no contamination of Fort Detrick or the local community , and no one ( including the technician ) became ill . The outcome of the incident was taken to indicate the effectiveness of the biological safety practices pioneered during the early days of “ bioweaponeering ” at Fort Detrick . In the lead up to its demolition , Dr . George Anderson of Southern Research Institute , an internationally recognized expert on " B . anthracis " , exhaustively reviewed documents on Building 470 and interviewed many of the men , some still residing in Frederick , who had worked in the building . He learned that no one working in Building 470 had died of anthrax , although three workers elsewhere on Fort Detrick had died of infection with agents that were being researched as biological weapons : one , a microbiologist in 1951 , and another , an electrician in 1958 , died of inhalational anthrax . The third worker died of Bolivian hemorrhagic fever .