Trespassers Are Warned A warning was issued today that trespassers on the site of the 86 AAA Nike battalion area east of Burns Ditch will be arrested and prosecuted.

Fred Krautstrunk, caretaker of the Midwest Steel and Consumers company property being leased by the army, said three persons had been apprehended during the past week after entering the restricted military area.

Krautstrunk said the area has been well marked as restricted and that persons trespassing could not miss seeing the signs. The Nike battalion now occupies an area extending a mile and a half east of Burns Ditch and between U. S. 12 and the lakefront.

Sentries of the anti-aircraft battalion are armed and a serious incident could result if further trespass attempts are made, Krautstrunk said. The caretaker said that hunters should stay away from the area. He expressed the fear that a wild shot might touch off explosives now stored there.

National Steel had long owned that land but did not have a mill there for another eight years. 1½ miles east of the Ditch would put the missile base in what is now the port. The "extending" reference apparently was meant to refer to the whole area from Burns Ditch to the east end of the old sandmine, although the base itself just covered forty acres. Tom Tittle says that the Nike facility was north of the old IHBRR tracks, where Midwest Steel's plant now is, as he recalls seeing it from the top of the spoil ridge which used to run along the west side of the Ditch. Vehicular access for the base would have been off U.S. 12 via the old Dune Park railroad crossing, which became the "back" way into the port but is now closed.

George Svihla recalled men from the Nike outfit playing softball against boys here in Ogden Dunes. A woman from Lake Station told me that she dated a man serving at that Nike base. Nobody else remembers nuttin'.

One Duner called me and talked about serving at a Nike base out West but no one has responded to our earlier requests for information about the Ogden Dunes Nike base. I have come across eleven other old newspaper articles while looking through microfilm from 1955 & '56. I am sure there were plenty of others, which I simply do not have the time to find.

Ogden Duners walked through those dunes. (Yes, townspeople regularly took several-mile hikes back then.) Duners drove down U.S. 12 past there. Some of the servicemen must have occasionally stopped in for gasoline and food here in town. Existence of that base was not a secret. Some of the area Nike bases even had open houses, though I have not yet come across any mention of one being held at ours.

Why was it referred to as the Ogden Dunes Nike base? Just as the Wheeler Nike base was not actually in Wheeler but rather northeast of that village, our Ogden Dunes Nike site was not within the incorporated town of Ogden Dunes. There was no such place as "Portage" for another five years. Each Nike site had an official military designation but newspapers generally referred to them by the nearest town. Ogden Dunes was simply the closest well known place name.

Chesterton Tribune, Thursday, 17 March, 1955 Ready To Fire Guided Missiles Three area nike installations are now capable of firing deadly guided missiles in case of enemy attack over the Calumet region, according to the U. S. Army.

The installations are part of the 79th AAA Missile battalion headquarters which are at Gary airport.

Porter county's nike site is located on the lakefront east of Ogden Dunes; Lake county has one at the airport, and the second is at 25th and Chase in Gary.

The nikes are maintained on a 24-hour schedule and can go into action at a moment's notice.

Each of the three sites has complex radar tracking equipment as well as launching platforms from which the guided missiles will take off.

Lt. Col. David Gauvreau, commander, points out the sites have been designed and built with the safety of personnel and everyone else in the area in mind.

"The launching facilities themselves have been placed maximum distances from residential areas, inhabited buildings, and public thoroughfares," Gauvreau said.

All missiles and explosives are stored underground and fueling operations performed behind earthen revetments.

The battalion has a payroll of approximately $100,000 a month, most of which will be spent locally.

Gauvreau said present security classification of the equipment at the nike sites rules out an "open house" which would allow the public in inspect the bases.

"It is hoped that in the future these restrictions may be eased and an open house of the area may be authorized," he said.

Permanent-type barracks have been built for personnel at the airport site and those stationed in the Glen Park site. Personnel at the nike installation in Ogden Dunes, however, are still housed in temporary barracks.

Each of the installations in the city cost an estimated $1,500,000.

Before manning the nike bases here, the 79th Battalion was stationed at anti-aircraft emplacements along the Chicago lakefront.

Valparaiso Vidette-Messenger, Saturday, 24 September, 1955 Nike Base In North County To Be Made Permanent Site The Ogden Dunes Nike launching station in northwest Porter county, acquired by the Army Corps of Engineers in June, 1954, will be developed into a permanent $1,000,000 guided missile installation, Gary sources have announced.

Developed will be the current Nike set-up, located in Porter county on a 40-acre tract east of Ogden Dunes. Sealed bids will be opened in Chicago, on Oct. 18, it was announced.

The Porter unit will be a component of the 9th AAA guided missile battalion.

Acquisition of the Ogden Dunes site as a Nike launching station was made for the protection of the Gary industrial district from future attack from enemy bombers.

The site is located east of the Gary Boat club in a dune and wooded area at the southern end of Lake Michigan. The permanent site is to be built a few hundred feet west of the temporary location, it was pointed out. The launching station will be re-located at Homewood, Ill., it was stated.

The project will consist of three underground storage structures for the missiles, plus nine buildings, including mess halls, barracks and administrative offices. Other structures will be built for generators, inter-connecting corridors, general purpose recreation, storage and other smaller buildings, the report stated.

Lt. Col. David Gravereau, commander of the 79th, will continue to command the new base, it was announced.

Valparaiso Vidette-Messenger, Wednesday, 22 February, 1956 Porter County Role Explained In Case of Nuclear Attack "Since Chicago has been designated a prime target area, it follows that Porter county will be a reception center in case of nuclear attack."

This was the report made here Tuesday evening by Lt. Col. N. H. Shortridge, assistant director of Civil Defense for Indiana. . . .

Valparaiso Vidette-Messenger, Thursday, 16 August, 1956 Guided Missile Installation In Wheeler Is Nearing Completion . . . Following completion of the Wheeler station, a second Nike guided missile depot will be constructed in the Tremont vicinity, Tilkens stated today.

Bids for the Tremont station are scheduled to be opened at the U. S. Army Engineer Corps offices in Chicago Sept. 6. Starting date is set for Oct. 1.

An earlier Nike station, located at Ogden Dunes in north Porter county, was dismantled and removed last year.

Why was the Army's plan for upgrading the Ogden Dunes Nike base suddenly reversed? Ironically the missile base, intended to protect the area's heavy industry, was not popular with our politicians. Indiana wanted to build a harbor there for Midwest Steel and Bethlehem Steel, to encourage them to build steel mills there. The Nike base in the lakefront dunes interfered with their desire to stop the move towards creating a national park there and developing industry instead.

Stories from around the country comment on how often farmers were unhappy to be made to give up chunks of their land to the federal government to build missile bases in the middle of their farms. The steel corporations did not have that problem.

At the same time that our Army was explaining that they had to build Nike bases in Jackson Park and other Chicago parks, as locations away from the lakefront would be so much less effective (although there was also an additional ring of bases miles inland), they were moving Porter County's first line of defense against nuclear annihilation back a couple miles from the lakefront here. But, hey, they increased the tax base.

Half of the Wheeler Nike base is now on the National Register, and plans are being developed for historically interpreting the site. Nothing identifiable remains of Porter County's first Nike base however. This historical society still welcomes any memories at all of the Ogden Dunes Nike base. If our readers are interested, we may relate more of the Nike story in a future issue.

e-mail		Hour Glass	H.S.O.D.

Web-published 9 October, 2002; slight alterations 13th January, 2007.