Skaggs Island, California

For over 50 years, Skaggs Island was a secretive, secure, and self-contained naval base, engaged in a number of communications and intelligence gathering functions for the Navy and other federal intelligence organizations. Direction-finding high-frequency antennas, for example, could aid in locating distant sources of communications by intercepting signals bouncing off the ionosphere. The 3,310 acre site was purchased by the Navy in 1941, and closed in 1993, but the antennas continued to be used for some time after that. A staff of up to 400 people were stationed here, and most of the buildings were residential and recreational buildings, including rows of single story homes, a theater, mess hall, recreation center, chapel, bachelor's quarters, and administrative buildings, all of which lay abandoned and collapsing for years, but have now been removed. Beyond the main base and an unrelated aviation beacon (a VOR antenna), the only other structures of any size on the base were two block houses that contained transmitting and computer equipment, and the antenna arrays. All of this has been removed, and now the site is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and being restored into to wetlands.