Jump to content

Looking for resources: Abandoned military bases in the US?


Martinjmpr
 Share

Recommended Posts

Does anyone know if there is a good database (or better yet, a map!) showing abandoned military bases in the US? During WWII there were hundreds of small military installations scattered all over the country. Many of them were used as training bases by the USAAF but there were other installations as well like munitions depots, POW Camps, etc. I'm just wondering if there's a handy reference out there somewhere.

 

I know for airfields there's this one:

 

http://www.airfields-freeman.com/

 

Nice thing about that is that it's indexed by state.

 

I travel a lot (when I can) and I always think it's cool to go and visit some old abandoned military base and see what (if anything) is left of it.

 

I first got interested in this back in 1990 when I was on active duty with the Army. I was with a Military Intelligence Brigade based at Fort Lewis (the 201st MI Bde, supporting I Corps.) We did a field exercise with one of our subordinate battalions, which happened to be an OR NG MI battalion of Salem, and our exercise took place at Pendleton, which is on the Columbia River. Since the unit was an Aerial Exploitation Battalion (i.e., an aerial reconnaissance battalion) the exercise involved their various surveillance aircraft and we were based at the Pendleton airport.

 

Walking around the airport, I could see that some of the buildings there unmistakably looked like the classic two-story WWII wooden barracks buildings, but they had all been converted to offices. When I asked someone there, he told me that Pendleton had been a USAAF training base during WWII. That got me to thinking that there must be little bases like that scattered all over the American West, and that there were undoubtedly other types of military installations as well.

 

So what I'm trying to find is anything that would be similar to the Airfields guide but for other types of installations. Doesn't have to be WWII, either, for example I'm really interested in Cold War stuff. I've been to JM Kirk's ICBM web pages and know where all of the old ICBM sites in the US are (some very interesting facts about ICBMs but I'll post that in another thread...)

 

Anyway, I'm sure the information is out there, but it's not easy to find.

 

Thanks in advance for any links or books anyone can point me to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I once heard of an organization called the Council on Abandoned Military Posts, or something like that. You might do a web search and see what comes up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nearly all of the Coast Artillery forts in the US are now abandoned, many with surviving buildings and batteries. Check out the Coast Defense Study Group (cdsg.org) for a good website about the Coast Artillery in the United States.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I use another Freeman resource. It may be the same thing you are looking at. Here's the link:

 

http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/index.htm

 

 

I have not found anything better than this, but if you do, let me know.

 

Good luck.

 

That's the same one. And it's a good resource, it's just that it's limited to airfields.

 

I'm also really interested in post WWII Cold War sites. There is an index of every missile silo in the US (and there are over 1200 of them!)

 

There are currently 450 active silos, all of them are in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska.

 

There are deactivated/abandoned silos in the following states: Washington, California, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Vermont and New York.

 

However, the sites in Arkansas, Missouri, and Arizona were all blown up and bulldozed per treaty requirments as were all the abandoned silos in North Dakota. There are currently two silos that are open as museums, a Titan 2 just South of Tucson, AZ and a Minuteman site near the Badlands National Park in South Dakota.

 

I've tried to find locations of the NIke antiaircraft sites but have yet to find one single source that shows where they all are. There were at least 150, most of them in the Northeast, one near Chicago and a few on the West Coast. If any one has a resource showing the deployment of all Nike missile systems I'd love to see it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK, for some bizarre reason this board won't let me post a link but if you google "Atlas missile silo coordinates" you can find the link.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK, for some bizarre reason this board won't let me post a link but if you google "Atlas missile silo coordinates" you can find the link.

 

For at least a year or more now I've not been able to paste anything onto the forum using Internet Explorer. If I use the Google Chrome browser I can paste things just fine. I don't know why I.E. is fouled up for pasting things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...