Military
A former major firing range and weapons test site in southern Indiana. Since 1941, 23 million test rounds have been fired here, with an estimated 1.4 million unexploded devices, including armor-piercing uranium-tipped rounds, left strewn about the site. Some have penetrated as deep as 24 feet into...
One of the world's most powerful transmitters, this million watt Navy radio facility communicates with submarines at sea using very low frequency radio waves. Built in 1953 in the foothills of the northern Cascades, ten massive antenna cables, all more than a mile long, span the Jim Creek valley,...
This Upper Peninsula Air Force Base closed in 1995. The 5,200 acre base housed B-52 bombers and refueling aircraft, and employed around 5,000 people. Former SAC base and part of the SAGE system.
The uninhabited ten mile long island of Kahoolawe, off the southwest shore of Maui, was used as a bombing range for the Navy until the late 1990's and is now undergoing a $280 million clean-up.
A Marine Corps installation on a peninsula north of Honolulu. Home to 15,000 Marines, their families, and civilian employees. Marines stationed here can be quickly deployed into the Far East. The base includes an airfield, an intelligence and electronic warfare batallion, and support services, and...
Major computer, medical, and electronics training center for the Air Force. 8,000 military and civilian employees, on over 1,500 coastal acres next to Biloxi.
One of four Air Force bases in the San Antonio area, Kelly is a major maintenance center for the Air Force. Much of the operations of the base are being privatized, after realignment by BRAC in 1993, and the Air Force Base title will be dissolved in favor of a civilian name. Kelly is home of the...
Naval Air Station which serves a number of functions and has several annexes and bombing ranges. The main base for the installation is on Boca Chica island, two islands before Key West (the last island on the Overseas Highway, which strings most of the Florida Keys together). The Trumbo Annex is on...
Located in the southeastern corner of Georgia on 16,000 coastal acres, Kings Bay is a major submarine base, providing operational support for all the East Coast's Trident nuclear submarines. The 25 square mile site was originally developed as a munitions storage and loading facility by the Army in...
Kirtland Air Force Base is one of the most vital and active military facilities in the country, with over 20,000 people working within its secured perimeter, at the south end of Albuquerque. The heavily built up part of the base, generally north and east of the runways (that also serve as the main...
One of four Air Force Bases in the San Antonio area, Lackland is a Basic Training center for new Air Force recruits, which number around 35,000 every year. Lackland also trains Air Force personnel in a variety of technical fields, and has programs that train foreign nationals in English (associated...
A peak next to the ocean near Ventura that has several aerospace functions. Facilities track and monitor launches of missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Point Mugu, and other sites. Laguna Peak's Naval Satellite Operations Station is part of a network of satellite control facilities,...
Lake Hancock is a coastal marsh on Whidbey Island, which was used as a bombing range by the Navy from the 1940's to the 1970's. Still littered with submerged metal fragments, the 423 acre site is now managed by the nearby Naval Station and the Nature Conservancy. Bombing practice for Whidbey Island...
A naval aviation research and development base, recently realigned, with some operations heading to Jacksonville Naval Air Station and Patuxent River Naval Station. Once a rigid airship factory and port, and site of the 1937 Hindenburg disaster. Two of the large hangars that once housed the...
Major Air Force Fighter base, and headquarters for the Air Combat Command, a complex of fighter jet bases across the country. Over 10,000 people work at Langley, a base that covers 2,883 acres and has over 1,000 buildings. Shares some utilities and facilities with NASA Langley Research Center,...
Undergraduate flight training is the primary mission of this Air Force Base on the US/Mexican border, with a 4,100-acre main base, and a new 402 acre auxiliary airfield near Spofford, 22 miles to the southeast. Laughlin once served as a U2 spyplane base, and has trained around 10,000 Air Force...
Lemoore Naval Air Station (NAS) is home port for the Pacific Fleet's Strike Fighter Jet Aircraft community. Currently, 10 of the Fleet's F/A-18 "hornet" fighter squadrons are located at the NAS. The base, located south of Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley, encompasses 29,794 acres and employs about...
Research and development associated with propellants is pursued at this Air Force facility, managed by Hill Air Force Base. Located on the eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake, the remote and secretive facility uses radioactive material as part of its research.
This base is home to a large Airlift Wing, which flies C-130 aircraft. The Wing is used to deliver supplies and soldiers to allied conflicts all over the globe. The 6,500-acre base has 5,000 military workers, and is the only C-130 training institution in the Armed Forces.
This was the launch site for a battery of Nike Ajax missiles, active between 1955 and 1961, one of fifteen Nike Missile sites operated in Massachusetts between the 1950's and the 1970's to defend coastal urban areas against aerial attack. Missiles were stored underground and launched from the area...
Formerly a 9,000-acre Air Force Base in the extreme northeast corner of the USA, in Aroostook County, Maine (the county is as large as Connecticut and Rhode Island combined and is the most sparsely populated county east of the Mississippi). Before closing in 1994, the base was the home of a...
Located near Los Angeles Airport (LAX), this base is the headquarters for the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), a major military satellite development organization. SMC is responsible for research, development, acquisition, testing and sustainment of military space and missile...
Lowry is a closed Air Force Base in suburban Denver that is being redeveloped into a network of businesses, schools, and new urbanist housing developments. The base was closed by BRAC in 1994, and buildings began being demolished in 1996. Lowry started out in WWII, and was a bomber base for a few...
Luke AFB calls itself the largest fighter training base in the world, which it may be, though Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base is also big. With 215 aircraft, mostly F-16's, and over 8,000 personnel, the base uses the 2.7 million acre Barry M. Goldwater Range in southwestern Arizona for training....
An Air Force Base established to support the two unusual units stationed here. One of these is Special Operations Command, a multifaceted military organization involved in small-scale, counterinsurgency, psychological, and covert operations worldwide. There is a "Special Ops" unit in the Army (at...
A base supporting the 50 local Minuteman III ICBM missile silos. This base removed the last Minuteman II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile in the Air Force's inventory from its silo in 1995, as part of a major arms reduction treaty. Much of the other Air Force aviation activities at the base,...
A relocation center for nearly 10,000 Japanese Americans who were imprisoned here during World War II. This is one of several internment camps in the Southwest, which in total confined about 100,000 people of Japanese descent, from 1941 (Pearl Harbor), to 1944, when it was deemed unconstitutional...
March, designated an Air Reserve Base in an April 1996 realignment, serves the Air Force as a base for refueling aircraft. Tanker aircraft such as the KC-135 Stratotanker are based here, as part of the 452nd Air Mobility Wing.
Mare Island was one of the most important Navy shipyards in the country, and is a diversely developed self-contained city. It opened in 1854, and during the height of WWII, 42,000 people worked here. It was closed in 1996, and the 5,500 acre peninsula, with nearly 1,000 buildings, is being...
A cold weather and mountainous terrain training area for the Marine Corps, on 46,000 acres in the Sierra Mountains. The land is part of the Toniyabe National Forest, and the Forest Service permits the Marine Corps to use it by letter of agreement. Though located in Northern California, the facility...