We in the center of town (and back then, it still was a town and not a city) would have been atomized. In the event of nuclear war, Austin was not only a legitimate target, but would have also gotten the kind of extra loving Cheyenne got. At the time it was built and for years afterwards he told me, it had the longest runway west of the Mississippi. It's one of the few Bergstrom AFB structures still standing.Į2: Added links to photos and additional reading.Īnd not just "a SAC base", but according to a former Air Force officer who was my landlord a long, long time ago, it was one of the few backups to Cheyenne Mountain. That ends up working in our favor during events like Formula 1, where large freight aircraft like the 747 need plenty of space for takeoffs and landings.Į: One more piece of trivia I forgot! The Austin Airport Hilton Hotel (the one shaped like a donut) is in the former Twelfth Air Force headquarters building.
It was the original Bergstrom AFB runway and had to be that length to accommodate heavily-laden B-52 bombers. Who'dathunk?īergstrom AFB, by the way, was named for the first native-born Austinite, Captain John August Earl Bergstrom, killed in in WWII (he died in the Philippines, in 1941).ĪBIA has two runways, one of which ( 17R/35L, the Westernmost runway) is exceptionally long-12,248 feet-for an airport like Austin, which generally sees smaller commercial aircraft. So tiny (back then) little Austin, Texas, was one of the most valuable targets during the Cold War. There were actually several Nike Hercules surface-to-air missile sites in and around Austin, each equipped with nuclear-tipped missiles meant to be used in defense against Soviet Bombers. SAC was the Air Force command responsible for the delivery of nuclear weapons, so Bergstrom was home to aircraft like the B-52 that, in the event of war with the Soviet Union, would have been armed with nuclear weapons and sent to attack targets overseas.īecause of that, Austin was a legitimately at-risk target (along with other SAC Air Force bases) for a preemptive or retaliatory nuclear strike, as the Soviets would want to cripple the Americans' nuclear strike capabilities. It's not widely known except among long time Austinites, but before Austin-Bergstrom International Airport was a civilian airfield, it was Bergstrom Air Force Base.īergstrom was a Strategic Air Command (SAC) base during the Cold War.
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