At the groundbreaking ceremony, Brig. Gen. James Guthrie, commander of the 29th Air Division at Great Falls, Montana, described the project to build an Air Force base as “North Dakota’s first major military installation.”

Minot Mayor Maurice Harrington; A.R. Weinhandl, president of the Minot Chamber of Commerce; Dr. A.L. Cameron, director in charge of the Chamber’s Military Affairs Committee; Hal S. Davies, chairman of the Military Affairs Committee and president of The Minot Daily News; Ulric Gwynn, secretary-manager of the Chamber; and B.O. Dahl, president of the Ward County Board of Commissioners, pledged the continued support and cooperation of the citizens of Minot and Ward County for the base.

Following the speeches, a ceremonial earth-turning was performed using a “dedicated” strip scraper machine with Dahl at the controls and other dignitaries riding along to “supervise.”

By a year later, a number of the projects for the new base were being constructed or had been completed, including dormitories, mess hall (chow hall/dining hall), hangars, noncommissioned officers club, chapel, gymnasium, heating plant and six-story control operational tower, concrete parking aprons, taxi strips and runway being enlarged from 8,100 to 13,200 feet in length.

Eloise Ogden/MDN The front page of The Minot Daily News on July 12, 1955, reported the groundbreaking event taking place for North Dakota’s first “major military” installation. The day of the event, the U.S. House Appropriations Committee recommended more than $6.2 million for construction of the new base.

Maurice “Ike” Isaacson was the base’s first engineer and Kenneth O. Gillespie, a World War II veteran, who arrived at the base on Feb. 17, 1957, when the base was still under construction, served as acting fire chief. In January 1961, he was named Minot AFB fire chief. Isaacson and Gillespie were among the first civilians hired at the air base.

Owen Brenden, of Minot, who began working at the base a year or so after it was activated, was the second civilian engineer assigned to the base. He became the base’s chief engineer in 1962 and continued until his retirement in 1987.

Besides the city of Minot, construction of the new base had an impact on other surrounding communities.

Initially, the base was to be a jet interceptor fighter base but then the Air Force announced plans for Strategic Air Command bombers to be stationed at Minot AFB, according to The Minot Daily News in July 1956.

The Air Force took up occupancy of the base on Feb. 15, 1957. A small ceremony was held in front of base operations when Lt. Col. T. W. Roe, area engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, turned over the “key” to Maj. Joe E. Roberts, the first base commander and first Air Force member assigned to the base, according to the February 1957 edition of The Minot Daily News.

By 1964, Minot AFB was ranked as one of the largest military installations in the nation with a military and civilian population of 18,500 men, women and dependents, who lived or worked on the facility, according to a report in the August 1964 edition of The Minot Daily News. This made the base the seventh largest “city” in North Dakota from a population viewpoint. Three years later, the base had an even larger population, with 18,771 military, civilians and dependents living, working or associated with the base, including at Minot AFB and at the radar site south of Minot.

The base has had a number of changes over the years with units leaving and others being added.

Today, Minot Air Force Base is the only dual wing, nuclear-capable base in the Air Force. The 5th Bomb Wing has B-52H bombers, and the 91st Missile Wing oversees the Minot missile field with Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

Nuclear modernization will involve new weapon systems coming to Minot AFB – the Sentinel, formerly Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), to replace the Minuteman III ICBM, and the Long Range Stand-off (LRSO) weapon, a nuclear-armed, air-launched cruise missile, for the B-52s. The UH-1N “Huey” helicopters are being replaced with the MH-139A “Grey Wolf” helicopters.

Sources: The Minot Daily News and Minot AFB history