The site is atop Eureka Hill, approximately 11 miles East of Point Arena. From the community of Point Arena, Eureka Hill Road is a modern, well paved road with a few farms, ranches and other businesses along it prior to it starting to wind up Eureka Hill itself, which in many other areas would probably be known as a (small) mountain. Starting to go up the hill, the first hint of the AFS could be the numerous old Pacific Telephone underground cable warning signs posted (image 020). After passing the occasional residential driveway along the heavily wooded route, a dirt road on my right led to a gate with USAF signage. I didn’t pull in to investigate this gate – it obviously wasn’t the main AFS gate, though I couldn’t see what the site was. I figured I’d investigate it further on the way back down from the site. Perhaps a mile or so later, this time on the left side of the road, I came across the GATR site. It was still a fenced-in compound, with the 8 phone pole masts for the antennas still intact, although the antennas themselves were gone. The GATR site is heavily overgrown & the site seems to be in good shape, but unused. The gate & perimeter fencing seemed intact too, from the road (images 001 – 006). Continuing on up Eureka Hill Road, I was finally rewarded with the entrance to the AFS site (image 007), about a mile or two up the road from the GATR.

The front gate was intact & still had the various stop/N-T & USAF Warning signs up, yet the gate was open, so in I drove! Just inside the gate (which by the way, had no evidence of any guardhouse) was the standard “WARNING – USAF Installation…” signs, with “OL A 9CS (ACC) Point Arena AFS” written on it (image 008) and then an open field, with a couple dozen family housing units visible (image 009). The only signs of life I saw where numerous deer sitting in the shade along some of the houses, though the old blue truck depicted in one of the recent photo on the Radomes page is still parked in a driveway. My focus was on the Ops Area, so I didn’t drive down the streets in this housing area, yet all the houses seemed completely intact, with no signs of vandalism (images 10 & 11).

Continuing down the road just a little past the housing area is another gate which I assumed would lead to the Ops area. This gate was also open, and also had the usual N-T signage up. No guard shack, but there was a fairly modern intercom box with a telephone handset (not working), cardkey reader, and numeric security code keypad (images 12 & 14). Next to this box was a signpost (images 12 & 13) with individual, hand-painted signs pointing towards & giving the distances to: “McCord AFB (sic) 718,” McClellan AFB 175 (with evidence that they originally had McClellan spelled out at McClelland), “29 Palms Naval Hospital 645,” and Tooele Army Depot 805.” The “McCord” and Tooele signs were both pointed in the same direction! I was embarrassed for the USAF that McChord AFB had been misspelled, especially since I believe for at least a few years, NORAD Western Air Defense Sector at McChord AFB had operational and/or administrative control over Point Arena AFS! How sad that apparently not even the installation commander didn’t realize that McChord was misspelled – or at least he didn’t do anything about it. And how in the world could they get McChord wrong, but spell Tooele correctly?!?

Jogging up the road, I passed several dirt roads leading off into the trees, and then came across the site’s former tennis court – the net still intact & with “cigarettes” misspelled on the big posted rules sign (image 015). Just up from that was the filled-in swimming pool (images 16 & 18), and Bldg 228 – the changing room/bathrooms (image 019). Handwritten in the old cement along the edge of the pool was “___ League Champions The Soulful 4” (image 017). Amazingly, a few days later I determined who had written that, over three decades ago!

Here’s the email he sent me:

Would you believe I wrote that? I think I wrote it in some wet cement in what was the pump room. I guess it is a small world! The Soulful Four was the name of my bowling team; we won the league championship that year and I still have the trophy. Now, isn`t that something? As I recall, I was nursing something of a hangover at the time I did the writing, but since I boasted the most legible handwriting of the group, my teammates drafted me for the job anyway, despite my shaky hands. The only teammate`s name I can recall at the moment is Emile Graves. Thanks for the memory.

T.P. Woodfork

Just beyond the pool area is the Wastewater Treatment plant – a couple sheet metal sheds, and then what looked to be a concrete retention pond built into the far slope of the hill (images 021 & 022). At this point, I was approximately a quarter mile up the access road from my car. I still couldn’t see the RADAR towers or other main components of the Ops area, but it looked like I was getting close (image 023). A fire hydrant in this vicinity had the forging date of 1960 on it (image 024). Finally, approximately half a mile up the road from the gate was a clearing where the two RADAR towers and a variety of other structures became visible. The first building was the Recreation Center (per a sign), up on hill to my right (image 027). On my left were a couple foundations of what were apparently barracks (images 025 & 026). As I continued up the road towards the RADAR towers, the whole area off to my right and on a slightly lower grade seemed to consist of support buildings (image 029) – the boiler plant was obvious (image 030), but then there were numerous other buildings back that way, and while looking at them, I saw a white pickup truck parked in front of one, and heard what sounded like an electric saw in operation. I knew at this point that it was in my best interests to avoid contact, but now that I knew someone was around, to hurry up the road (image 028) & get a few photos of the RADAR towers & Ops Blockhouse, then beat feet to get out of there before whoever else was there left the site, and came across my car & girlfriend parked outside the gate. Running up the driveway towards the RADAR towers (image 031), I passed & rendered a quick salute to the rusty, vacant flagpole which stands along the left side of the road, nearby one of the building foundations (image 032). The site containing the two RADAR towers was just about 50 yards away, up the road which curved to the left. As I entered the immediate RADAR/Ops compound area, there was a brown building on my right labeled “DE HOLDING AREA” (images 033 & 058) Next were the two RADAR towers (images 034, 35), and the Ops Blockhouse (images 037, 039, 057). The smaller RADAR tower – the Height finder RADAR, now has a heavy duty 30’ tall communications tower atop it, with a microwave antenna and two VHF/UHF omnidirectional antennas on it (images 036 & 038). The Ops building seemed to be secured, but I was able to make a non-forcible entry (image 040). The doorway led into what seems to be a standard (based on the two other Ops Buildings I’d been inside -- Cambria & Madera AFSs) design – two stories of open space, with a ‘mezzanine’ running across the rear wall that had many large windows looking out onto the space below, and a stairway for access. The ground floor of this room was carpeted, and had a couple doors leading to the rest of the building (image 041). I ventured up the stairs to this mezzanine, and it had a powder blue paint scheme (image 043), and a door leading to another small, vacant room with the same paint scheme (image 045). On the wall in this main mezzanine room was the USA Bicentennial logo and “1776 TO 1976” written underneath in black lettering, except for the 776 (as in 776th RADAR Squadron) which was in red paint (image 044). Back down the stairs to the ground floor level, a set of double doors had “OPERATIONS” stenciled in red paint on them, and interestingly, a padlock hasp & deadlock to prevent them from being opened from the other side (image 046). I held my breath as I opened the doors (image 042), hoping to see some old RADAR consoles, a plotting board, and various other operational & cultural artifacts, but alas, the room was mostly empty, save for what appeared to be the bottom of a wood crate sitting on the tile floor (image 047). The walls consisted of white acoustical tile, as did the ceiling, which also had many light & ventilation fixtures. Armed with my trusty Stinger flashlight, I did a quick run through the maze of corridors and small rooms (image 049), hoping to come across something of significance, but alas, the site seemed to have been stripped of all operational gear and only support gear such as electrical & alarm panels and wiring were in place (images 048, 051 – 053). There weren’t even any logos or artwork on the walls, besides the bicentennial logo I’d seen on the second floor mezzanine. Besides the electrical & air conditioning rooms, only what I believe must have been the former telephone/AUTOVON/AUTODIN room had significant remains – some chairs, tables, trunk lines, wiring, and some old paperwork & manuals (images 054, 055). It seems like this was the final room to have been scrapped, and the job was left incomplete. I paid no attention to it at the time, but reviewing a photo I took of an AUTOVON/DSN telephone keypad item indicates there was a newspaper in a trashcan in this room, with a news item indicating that famous conductor Leonard Bernstein had died (image 056). A Google search indicated Bernstein died on 14 OCT 90.