Loring Air Force Base played a crucial part in America’s defense during the Cold War and beyond, but the work of the 42nd Bombardment Wing wasn’t all inside the gates.
Across Aroostook County, several installations defended the base against incoming harm, relayed communications, conducted simulated warfare, housed personnel and more.
Some of those sites still exist; others are gone. One has crumbled into eerie rubble in an obscure clearing. But in their day, they supported one of the nation’s most important strategic bases. Here are a few of them.
The Nike missile sites
Caribou, Connor, Caswell and Limestone housed U.S. Army Nike air defense missile sites to defend Loring. At first the Nikes were conventional weapons, but later the Nike Hercules was equipped to carry nuclear warheads, according to The Military Standard.
“Luckily, they never needed them. They never launched one,” said Bob Tweedie of Westfield, U.S. Army veteran and a local author and historian. “If they had, you can just imagine the devastation there would have been.”
Tweedie worked at the Connor site from March 1957 until September 1958 as a launcher control operator. The missiles could be set off from a control panel, launch area or the integrated fire control area, he said.
An near-incident happened just a few weeks before he was discharged in 1958. President Eisenhower had sent troops into Lebanon, so Strategic Air Command bases worldwide were on alert. The alarms sounded one morning in Connor and the team mobilized, Tweedie said.
They spotted five unidentified planes, then seven more. Personnel were directed to attach the squibs, or explosive devices, to the missiles to prepare for launch. Tension flared — then relief: the planes were Canadian and had simply gotten too close to U.S. airspace.
The County’s Nike locations were deactivated in the late 1960s. Some buildings exist on the properties in Limestone, Caswell and Connor, which are mostly privately owned.
One of Caribou’s remaining buildings is well-preserved and retains its military connection: it is now the headquarters of the Caribou Veterans of Foreign Wars.
The Caribou radio operation
Loring’s 2192nd Communications Squadron operated a high-frequency radio facility in Caribou after the Nike site closed.
“Work didn’t all take place on the base. A lot of people had no idea,” said retired Chief Master Sergeant Ed Schellhase of Iowa, who worked there from 1974 to 1977. “They might have seen the antennas, but we were out in the potato field at the transmitter site.”
From 1955 to 1994, the squadron provided air traffic control, navigation support and communications for Loring and also aided air traffic control in Presque Isle and Caribou, according to the Loring Air Museum.
Satellite technology didn’t exist then, so high-frequency radio was a critical mission, Schellhase said. He and his crew worked with aircraft traveling across the ocean.
Schellhase maintained transmitting and control equipment. There were seven transmitters on site, he said, with huge antennas — hundreds of feet long and wide — and operators could steer them.
One night, he and 15 others were trapped inside by a snowstorm and briefly lost power. Emergency generators kicked in and they maintained radio power continuously for aircraft crossing the north Atlantic, according to a December 1974 article in Air Force publication Intercom, which Schellhase shared.
Today, the radio buildings are gone and a Federal Aviation Administration radar facility operates on the site.
The Snark missile project
The Presque Isle Air Base also played a Cold War role.
The first Snark arrived in Presque Isle on May 27, 1959, according to Kim Smith of the Presque Isle Historical Society. It was an intercontinental, ground-launched missile that measured about 67 feet with a 42-foot wingspan, and was armed with a nuclear warhead.
“The Presque Isle Army Air Base was the northernmost base in the continental United States,” Smith wrote in The Star-Herald. “It was the first line of defense from any possible attack from the USSR during the Cold War.”
No Snark ever launched from Presque Isle, and the missiles were short-lived as they were deemed unreliable. The program ended in 1961, the same year the Presque Isle base closed.
The remnants of one of the launchpads are still visible behind one of the old military hangars at Presque Isle’s Skyway Industrial Park.
The Perham communications center
A crumbling monstrosity hidden in Perham is what remains of Loring’s Communications Annex No. 2.
The facility belonged to GlobeCom, the U.S. Air Force Global Communications System, which was the world’s first integrated communications system, according to Cold War Relics historian David Dauphinee.
At left: The decaying interior of the former Loring Global Communications Annex #2 at Perham is seen in August 2024; at right: the remains of the large U.S. Air Force global communications facility in Perham are largely grown over and crumbling. Credit: Paula Brewer / The Star-Herald
The site operated from 1955 to 1962, according to Century Maine – Lost and Abandoned Places. It, too, was part of the 2192nd Communications Squadron.
Now, the cross-shaped building sits in ruins. Doors and windows are gone and broken concrete walls gape open, most covered with graffiti. Inside, trenches indicate where racks of equipment stood. The ceiling shows remains of metal tracks and one wing reveals a collapsing staircase.
Outside are remnants of a guard station and other structures.
The Ashland radar site
The Detachment 7, 99th Electronic Combat Range Group operated in Ashland from about 1975 to 1993.
The site was Loring’s tactics and training range and employed 52 service members and one civilian, the Bangor Daily News reported in 1993. Work consisted of radar bomb scoring and electronic combat drills — warfare simulations to sharpen skills and strategies.
The group won several awards for outstanding performance and closed in September 1993.
A former military building on Radar Road now houses the Maine Forest Service and Maine Land Use Planning Commission.
Loring had other support sites around Maine, including an Eastport fuel pipeline and radar sites. Together, they are a reminder that the base’s mission extended well beyond its gates.
