The space was built in 1969 at the height of the Cold War for a very different purpose: this is where the Federal Reserve stockpiled billions of dollars in cash for use after a war with the Soviet Union.
The Geography and Maps Division at the Library of Congress is one of the more interesting rooms on Capitol Hill. Their hoard includes 5.2 million maps, 80,000 atlases and over 500 globes; it is the largest cartographic collection in the world.
