Preservation effort

Dear Editor,

To people interested in history, at the current time the McCook Army Air Base apron is being destroyed. If you learned to drive on the air base concrete runways, taxiways and apron, this part of your history will soon be gone forever. The place where your father or grandfather began his training to serve his country will no longer be part of McCook history.

In our busy lives, we sometimes forget what our parents and grandparents did during their lives. Every year, more of our history is being destroyed. If we don't remember what happened before, how can we know how to handle the future?

The McCook Army Air Base Historical Society has worked to preserve this history and now is applying for a grant to purchase property to create a hiking, biking trail through the historic building area. Our hope is we are not too late to preserve some of the concrete apron the current landowners are crushing.

Take a short drive to see this last piece of McCook and some of your own history.

The following proposal has been discussed with Red Willow County Commissioners March 28, 2011, with the City of McCook April 4, 2011, public notice and newspaper.

The McCook Army Air Base Historical Society is applying for a $50,000 grant to purchase approximately 15 acres of concrete apron for a walking, biking, Jeep tour of the historic building area at the former World War II McCook Army Air Base.

This will also enhance security at the site.

There is enough room to move a county road onto the apron and eliminate a dangerous S curve in the current road. If the adjoining land owners agree to improve its historic significance.

This hiking, biking trail through the historic building area would create the opportunity to see the front of the three museum hangar buildings the Historical Society owns. These buildings will contain the history of Nebraska Army Airfields and many items of World War II memorabilia.

By saving this historic apron, it would enable the Society to qualify for further grants to list the site on the National Registry of Historic Places and create tourism jobs for the area.

Dale Cotton,

Air Base Society