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Type surface-to-air missile base Controlled by 1961-8: Air Defense Command
1968-9: Aerospace Defense Command Garrison 35th Air Defense Missile Squadron | ||
The Niagara Falls Air Force Missile Site was a Cold War USAF launch complex for Boeing CIM-10 Bomarc surface-to-air missiles. Equipped only IM-99Bs (46 missiles: solid-state, solid-fuel booster), the site had 48 Model IV "coffin" shelters, after an initial design with a secure area of ~20 acres (8.1 ha) to have 28 shelters (the planned site had additional area for 84 "future shelters"). Launch control for the site's missiles was by central NY's "Hancock Field combined direction-combat center" (CC-01/DC-03) at Syracuse, New York. DC-03 was operational on December 1, 1958; (CC-01 was the "first SAGE regional battle post", beginning operations "in early 1959".)
Construction began in 1959. The missile site and squadron were activated on 1 June 1960, and missiles were operational on 1 December 1961. In January 1962 the RF-62E gap filler radar site at Brookfield in Ohio became a "major off-base…installation" of the Niagara Falls site, transferred from Wright-Patterson AFB. In 1962, command of the BOMARC base transferred from Col. John A. Sarosy to Col James L. Livingston.
The site was the 1st BOMARC B launch complex to close, on 31 December 1969. The closure was part of a realignment of "307 military bases". The missile site was vacant until turned over to the Niagara Falls Municipal Airport ("international airport" 1 July 1985). The 1959 "Access Road" is now Johnson Street of the "Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station (NFARS) Fuel Depot", built over the area of the BOMARC shelters, which are still visible. The former northwest corner of the missile site is the current Tuscarora Road military gate.