Fort Knox

So secure that it can turn away Presidents and the world's richest man

- Delwyn Mallett

FORT KNOX, that enduring symbol of impregnability and unimaginable wealth, was in the news recently when President Trump – notoriously fixated on gold – and his on/off best buddy Elon Musk were denied access. Conspiracy theorists have forever speculated that the gold was long gone, spirited away by successive governments, and that the pair wanted to know if that was, indeed, fact.

The first and last Presidential visit to the bullion vault was during World War Two, when Franklin D Roosevelt, who had commissioned the depository in 1936, took a tour of inspection. In 1933 – the midst of the Great Depression – it was newly appointed Roosevelt who signed the controversial executive order 6102 banning 'the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates' so all holdings had to be surrendered to the Federal Reserve for a price fixed by itself.

By 1936, with tons of gold accumulating, a safe bullion depository became a matter of urgency. At a time when bank robbers were often armed with Tommy guns, a secure location was a priority – and what could be more secure than an Army base?

Fort Knox is vast, covering 170 square miles, and is named after Henry Knox, a Founding Father of the United States and a senior General during the Revolutionary War. 'Knox' is a Scottish surname derived from the Gaelic 'cnoc' for a hillock or hump and in Old English 'cnocc', a round-topped hill.