The Space Age
With Short's defeat in the 1956 election, the fort lost its legislative patron and was deactivated again in 1958. As that took place, about 2,000 acres (8.1 km2) of the post was turned over to the U.S. Air Force as a buffer zone around Air Force Plant 65, a government owned-contractor operated liquid propelled rocket engine manufacturing facility operated by the Rocketdyne division of North American Aviation. The complex, serviced by a spur of the Kansas City Southern Railroad, included a main manufacturing facility, an engine testing area (ETA) for the live fire testing of rocket engines, a component testing area (CTA), and a former Camp Crowder warehouse, Building 900, as a warehouse and later engine overhaul and manufacturing.
For 16 years, starting in 1957, rocket engines for missiles such as the Atlas, Thor and Saturn were assembled and tested at Air Force Plant 65. The facility constructed and tested engines for the Mercury and Gemini programs until its contract ended in 1968.
The permanent barracks, were obtained as surplus and formed the core of the community college campus for Crowder College in 1962.
Read more about this topic: Fort Crowder
Famous quotes containing the words space and/or age:
“The flattering, if arbitrary, label, First Lady of the Theatre, takes its toll. The demands are great, not only in energy but eventually in dramatic focus. It is difficult, if not impossible, for a star to occupy an inch of space without bursting seams, cramping everyone else’s style and unbalancing a play. No matter how self-effacing a famous player may be, he makes an entrance as a casual neighbor and the audience interest shifts to the house next door.”
—Helen Hayes (1900–1993)
“A personality is an indefinite quantum of traits which is subject to constant flux, change, and growth from the birth of the individual in the world to his death. A character, on the other hand, is a fixed and definite quantum of traits which, though it may be interpreted with slight differences from age to age and actor to actor, is nevertheless in its essentials forever fixed.”
—Hubert C. Heffner (1901–1985)