Research Material about the 1983 Atari Video Game Burial, 1983-2011

01

Artifact Overview

In 1983, rumors circulated: Atari was bankrupt, and was dumping truckloads of games into a New Mexico landfill. Victim to the "Video Game Crash," the company buried 700,000 cartridges in the desert. The story became an obscure pop culture legend -- until "The Atari Tomb" was unearthed in 2014. This document captures the history of the world's first video game excavation.

Artifact Details

Artifact

Research (Document)

Subject Date

1983-2011

Creator Notes

Copies of newspaper articles from September 1983 editions of the Alamogordo Daily News and an online article from the El Paso Times posted 19 February 2011.

Location

Not on exhibit to the public.

Object ID

2015.13.30

Credit

From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of the City of Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Material

Paper (Fiber product)

Dimensions

Height: 11 in
Width: 8.5 in

Research Material about the 1983 Atari Video Game Burial, 1983-2011