I wanna run through your rocket gardens

Old company logo taken from Wikipedia.

I've mentioned it passing here before, but after looking across the blog, I don't think I've ever had an article about the Thiokol facility here. So to rectify that, here's a short blurb on it:

The Thiokol Chemical Corporation started off in 1929 as a company that specialized in rubber and other related chemicals used as sealants. Its name came about as a portmanteau of the Greek words for sulfur (θεῖον "theion") and glue (κόλλα "kolla"), and was a reference to the company's first product, Thiokol polymer (thanks, wikipedia), which is used as a stabilizer in rocket fuel. The company has had a pretty diverse product line over the years which has included Snow cats, snowplows, tracked amphibious swamp vehicles, car airbags, tripflares, components for various space vehicles, they operated the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant, and was even briefly merged with the Morton Salt Company.

An older picture of the rocket garden taken from the CLUI site. This one kinda hides how much is actually there.

The company initially had facilities in  Elkton, Maryland, as well as Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama and Woodbine, Georgia.  Currently, the company headquarters resides in Ogden, Utah, which is not far from it's large test facility near Brigham City (or more accurately Promontory), Utah. 

It has since sold off it's snow and vehicle equipment division to John DeLorean (yes, THAT DeLorean) in the late 70s. In more recent years, it was bought out by Alliant Tech Systems, which in turn was also bought out by Northrop Grumman, who is the current owner/operator. However, despite the changing of hands, the facility out by Promontory point is still often referred to as the Thiokol plant. 

Main offices to the test site, pictured here behind one of the garden displays. Also taken from CLUI. 

1957 was the year when the current test facility was purchased and developed in Utah initially for the purpose of manufacturing and testing LGM-30 Minuteman I ICBMs. It has roughly 3000 employees and 450 buildings across 30 square miles of complex. 

Since then, the company has been involved in a bewildering number of other rocket programs, having made the motors or propellant for the Castor rockets, Atlas Booster sections, Ares launch vehicles, AIR-2 Genie AAM, UUM-44 SUBROC, UGM-73 Poseidon SLBM, AIM-9 Sidewinder AAM, AGM-88 HARM ASM, AGM-65 Maverick ASM, MGM-31 Pershing, AGM-69 SRAM, LGM-118 Peacekeeper ICBMs, UGM-133A Trident SLBM, Standard series of missiles, separation rocket motors for the Apollo Program, the motors for both the Bell X-1 and North American X-15, and perhaps most famous (or infamously) the boosters for the space shuttle program just to name a few. 

Another older picture of a warning sign near the main offices. Taken from the CLUI site.

Specifically, the part you can go see is the outdoor rocket garden display just outside of the test facility, which is conveniently located off their parking lot. It's about 25 miles west of Brigham City, Utah, and is only a couple miles away from the historic Golden Spike National Park. On the road to the garden, many of the bunkers, storage, and test facilities of Thiokol are visible along the road, and it was often possible see test firings of the space shuttle boosters from the road when they were still in use. 

Some of the test facilities, note the prominent radiation signage on one of the buildings. Sourced from CLUI.

The garden itself features a few full size-examples of rockets, like the shuttle booster, Trident, and Minuteman I missiles. However, most displays are just the rocket component of the many systems they have made, but they are all well marked with plaques explaining what they are, often with diagrams of how they are mounted in the full product. Being an outdoor display, it's free to the public to check out. 

A test firing of a booster from the Space Explored site, where you can watch a video of the event.