Have you ever driven north along route 96A towards the New York Thruway, looked out your window, and seen a ghostly white apparition of a deer? Sightings like this aren’t uncommon along this highway, which runs parallel to the western border of the former Seneca Army Depot. The vacated arms storage facility covers more than 10,000 acres of land between Cayuga and Seneca Lakes. The depot closed in 2000, and a 3000-acre section named Deer Haven Park was opened for touring last November. My family, some friends, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to explore the area and to get a view of the famous white deer up close.
The Depot was built in 1941 in preparation for the US entering WWII, one of three other similar bases built in the four corners of the country. The spot between Cayuga and Seneca Lakes was chosen because of its distance from population centers, and because of its proximity to railroads, both necessary for large military bases at the time. The depot’s construction required almost 9,000 workers to complete the project in less than a year, and in fact, the construction set records for the most concrete igloos poured in a week (78). During WWII, the depot was known to have stored radioactive materials related to the Manhattan Project in 62 of its igloos, in a separated area known as the Q area. The Depot remained active until 1995 and supplied weapons throughout the Korean, Vietnam, and Desert Storm Wars. It was constantly under guard during the Cold war, possibly due to the presence of nuclear weapons. The depot actually supplied almost all of the ammunition used in the 1991 Desert Storm War—close to 35,000 tons.
We went on our tour of the depot in early December, only about a month after the depot was opened to visitors. The welcome center was rather bare, but was filled with tourists viewing informational posters about the deer and the Army Depot. A small museum store displayed deer-themed merchandise, including sweatshirts, hats, deer-poop candy, and granola. In a few minutes, we boarded a small tour bus and entered the fenced-in park.
Only a short distance into the park, our bus passed the area where the soldiers in the depot disposed of faulty munitions, as well as the grenade and shooting ranges. Then, further into the park, we encountered our first storage igloo, 1 out of the 519 contained in the base. There were small plots of corn and apple trees planted throughout the park which the tour guides said were to help feed the deer, but seemed sort of out of place in the former military installation. We exited the bus on two occasions: once to enter a small bomb shelter, and another time to enter one of the igloos. The igloo was gigantic and had a curved vaulted ceiling made entirely of concrete. The roof of the building was covered in soil in order to protect the base from possible enemy attack. The majority of the igloos had trees and plants growing out of their roofs.
It was difficult to spot the main attraction—the white deer—during our tour. We only caught a few glimpses of them during the hour and a half that we spent in the park, and only through the thick brush that lined the roads our bus drove on. It was not until after the tour that I was able to get a good look. When I was standing in the parking lot, I saw two deer in an open field through the fence staring right back at me.
The white deer themselves are not fully albino versions of the normal white-tailed deer, but have only albino fur, caused by a recessive gene. In the wild, white deer are more likely to be killed by predators than brown deer, which makes them uncommon. However, the combination of the isolated deer population within the depot’s fence and the army’s protection of the white deer has allowed the population of the deer to grow. Currently, there are about 300 to 400 normal deer and 75 to 100 white deer living within the depot.
The Seneca White Deer Inc. (SWD) is a non-for-profit organization, and has existed for close to twenty years. It has worked to protect the depot and the deer from development, and finally got its chance in 2016 when Seneca County deemed the area clean enough to be sold. Seven thousand acres of the former Depot were sold to Earl Martin, the president of Seneca Iron Works, who has worked closely with SWD. Three thousand of those acres were turned into Deer Haven Park, where tours are given every weekend, from Friday to Sunday. For those who are interested in military history, or are just curious about the deer, this tour is interesting. If you would like to learn more about the white deer, SWD, or the Army Depot, visit www.senecawhitedeer.org.