The year of local airpower

Yes, rooms used to store sensitive items like the Norden are usually built pretty stoutly.  Think like a bank vault, but not quite. Rowdies? I suppose I would have qualified for that title as well at the time that we were unknowingly at the old airstrip... Lol! That's all I have to say about that ;) Our local county fairgrounds was a wartime Army Air Force base. There are still lots of the old GI architecture buildings still in use every year for the Fair. Year round every weekend there is a large swap meet on what was either the old ramp of runway area... Man I wish I could travel back 70 years to see how this area was with my own two eyes...  

Stik, the old B-17 base was used by my dad and other local rowdys back in the 60's for a drag strip on the weekends. Everything was gone but the concrete pads; he said they used the parking ramp it was so long. They have a WWII museum there now, and host an annual airshow. The only building left from the base is the one they used to store the Norden bombsights. Those walls are thick!

Well the particular area I live in is exceptionally rich in aviation history, although the airfields and production locations are fast disappearing. But where I work, along the roadside there is a historical marker for the 1910 Dominguez Air Meet, one of the first such events in the USA. I had to look it up when I read the marker. I have a pretty good idea of where the original strip was, although the area is now developed from an open hilltop to an industrial business area. I found a website awhile back that lists old airfields and I found out about a location where we used to hang out as teenagers was an old abandoned municipal airstrip... again converted to industrial business area....