The Casper Army Air Base is one of only four World War II military
installations constructed in Wyoming (the other three installations were the
Prisoner of War Camp at Douglas, the Heart Mountain Relocation Center between
Cody and Powell, and the quartermaster facility at Fort F.E. Warren in
Cheyenne). The Base was activated on September 1, 1942. Over four hundred
buildings were built during a three and one-half month construction period.
It was occupied by the 211th Army Air Force Base Unit consisting of twenty-one
officers and 165 enlisted men, whose mission was to operate the base and train
bomb groups for overseas assignment and individual replacement bombardment
combat crews. During its thirty months of active life, the Base trained an
estimated 16,000 combat crew members. The Base was officially deactivated on
March 7, 1945 and personnel were transferred to other bases. In 1949, the
former military air field became the Natrona County Municipal Airport and the
land and all buildings became county property. Approximately one hundred of
the original buildings that constituted the Casper Army Air Base, along with
the original street layout, parade grounds, and concrete pads for many of the
former buildings, remain.
