Avon Park Cold War Data

Located 75 miles from MacDill Air Force Base and about six miles east-northeast of Avon Park, Florida, Avon Park Air Force Range originated as a bombing and gunnery range in December 1941. Neighboring the range was an installation known as Avon Park Army Air Field and Avon Park Army Air Base. In 1946, Avon Park Army Air Field was largely unoccupied, kept on stand-by status as a satellite of MacDill. By 1947, most of its buildings and structures had been disposed. The Continental Air Forces had become the host command at MacDill in April 1945, followed by Strategic Air Command (SAC) in spring 1946. SAC is not known to have conducted major missions at Avon Park during the late 1940s and early 1950s, although did put procedures in place during 1947 for limited use of the Avon Park Bombing Range. In the late 1940s, only three (of an original seven) practice bombing ranges remained functional, along with the central emergency bomb release area and a dive bombing site in a small lake. With the outbreak of the Korean War, Air Proving Ground Command at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle began using the Avon Park Bombing and Gunnery Range for chemical warfare tests. Air Proving Ground Command conducted tests of growth inhibitors and defoliants in 1950 and 1951. These tests were known as the Avon Park Trials and as the Avon Park Project. Also in 1951, the United States Bureau of Prisons opened a minimum security prison at Avon Park. By this date, about 50 World War II buildings were still on base. Prisoners dismantled the majority of these buildings for use as salvage materials. After the Korean War, activities at Avon Park continued to focus on agent testing. In 1956, the Second Air Force began using the range for pilot, bombing, and gunnery training. SAC also established an advanced water survival school on the range in 1958. MacDill continued to have responsibility for the Avon Park range until 1961, when the range became a satellite of McCoy AFB. Avon Park returned to MacDill the next year, 1962, with Tactical Air Command assuming the base host role. For the remainder of the Cold War, TAC used the Avon Park Range for training activities. In the early 1970s, toward the end of the Vietnam War, TAC set up electronic warfare training on Avon Park. During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, TAC trained pilots and weapons systems personnel at Avon Park, configuring the range lands with renewable targets over the years.