Location: 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks on the Richardson Hwy 2, near Delta Junction.
The base came into being in 1942 as a staging area for planes ferried to the Soviet Union during World War II under the 'Lend Lease' program. In l955, it was designated as a cold weather training and testing ground for the U.S. Army. Seven years later, a SM-1A nuclear reactor was built to serve as the military reservation's power plant. Then in l966, the Army began using the base and nearby Gerstle River Military Reservation as sites for testing biological, chemical and other weapons. The nuclear reactor was decommissioned in l973 and in l995 the base was scheduled for closure under the Base Realignment and Closure Act. More recently, the Department of Defense proposed that Fort Greely became a storage area for interceptor missiles to be used in support of the space-oriented National Missile Defense program. Thus Fort Greely, one of the most isolated military bases in all of the United States, is historically linked to four of the most significant forms of contemporary warfare.
