Peterson Space Force Base

Colorado

The base is named for a lieutenant who died on takeoff there, four months before the field got his name.

militaryhistoricalaviation

Runways at the new Army air base outside Colorado Springs were finished in August of nineteen forty-two. On the eighth of that month, First Lieutenant Edward J. Peterson crashed on takeoff. He was the first Coloradan killed at the airfield. In December the field was named after him. The name has outlasted almost everything else about the place. It was Peterson Field, then Peterson Air Force Base, and since July of twenty twenty-one, Peterson Space Force Base. North American Aerospace Defense Command sits there now, along with the headquarters of United States Northern Command. The old airport terminal survived, and it holds the Peterson Air and Space Museum. A road in Colorado Springs carries the name too. It starts at the base and runs several miles across the city before ending at a fire station.

This is the first of 3 parts. The rest runs about 3 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
eponym 1st Lt Edward J. Peterson crashed 8 August 1942 on take off (1st Coloradoan killed at the airfield.)

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Nearby, on the same roads

  • Cheyenne Creek 6.9 mi Two men dammed this creek in the 1880s to make a lake that would help sell a hotel and casino, and then had to sue the city for stealing the water.
  • Old North End Historic District (Colorado Springs, Colorado) 7.3 mi A college president bought this land as an investment, named it New Massachusetts, and was fired when it lost money.
  • University of Colorado Colorado Springs 7.6 mi The university's administration building started life as a tuberculosis sanatorium that sold for one dollar.
  • 10th Field Hospital 7.7 mi A unit based here kept ninety-eight out of every hundred wounded soldiers alive, the highest survival rate in the history of American warfare.
  • Old Colorado City 9.1 mi This place was the capital of the Colorado Territory, and it effectively functioned as one for only five days.
  • Fountain, Colorado 9.3 mi A murder cover-up on a freight train sent eighteen tons of explosives rolling toward Fountain in 1888.