In the late 1950s, the United States government approached The Greenbrier resort and sought its assistance in creating a secret emergency relocation center to house the United States Congress due to the Cuban revolution and soon after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The classified, underground facility was built at the same time as the West Virginia Wing, an above-ground addition to the hotel, from 1959 to 1962.

[citation needed] The underground facility contained a dormitory, kitchen, hospital, and a broadcast center for members of Congress.

[6] What was used by Greenbrier guests for business meetings was actually a disguised work area for members of Congress, complete with four hidden blast doors.

[3] The center was maintained by government workers posing as hotel employees, and operated under a dummy company named Forsythe Associates, based in Arlington, Virginia.

[3] The company's first manager was John Londis, a former cryptographic expert with the Army Signal Corps.

Much of the bunker space was visible to the public, but went undetected for years, including The Exhibition Hall in the West Virginia Wing, which differs from other public spaces in the hotel due to large concrete columns present for reinforcing.

The communications center in the bunker today contains representatives of three generations of telephone technology that were used.