[CPEO-MEF] FORMER SITES: Amarillo Air Force Base (TX)

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Amarillo's ghost town: Workers recall sprawling air base decades after it disappeared


by Jay Ricci 
Amarillo Globe-News (TX)
March 10, 2015

On an unusually warm winter’s day, Bob Balliett surveyed the wide open spaces east of Amarillo he once called his workplace.

Gone are most of the buildings where people were trained to maintain airships America would count on in times of war and in times of peace. Gone, too, are those military men and women who were the backbone of the city’s bustling economy. In their place, Balliett found rusted-out pieces of metal, sidewalks that lead nowhere and lonely street signs at intersections that once bustled with activity.

Balliett, 79, will never forget all that activity.

“You can imagine,” he said, “with the thousands of service people who were out at that base, it was a beehive.”

But on this day, how much of what once was that base still has any functional use?

“I would say maybe 3 or 4 percent,” Balliett said. “It is a shame.”

You could call the old Amarillo Air Force Base a ghost town.

…

For the entire article, see
http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2015-03-10/amarillos-ghost-town

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650-961-8918 or 650-969-1545
Fax: 650-961-8918
LSiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org




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