submitted by Mark Morgan
This is a big station, with everything at the top of the hill; a mix of about 20 Quonset huts and cinderblock buildings, brick main gate structures (!), a smattering of more contemporary microwave towers, and a great view of the Harney Valley below.
The 634th AC&WS activated at McChord AFB on 21 May 1947, moved to Silver Lake (Everett) on 4 September 1948, and inactivated on 6 February 1952. During this brief period of operations the squadron was assigned to the 505th Aircraft Control & Warning Group at McChord and Silver Lake.
The squadron was resurrected at McChord on 20 June 1953, moved to Geiger Field in October 1954, and set up shop in Burns on 8 June 1955. It became the 634th Radar Squadron (SAGE) on 1 March 1961 and kept an eye on things until inactivation on 30 September 1970. Notably, the squadron reactivated one more time, serving at Lake Charles AFS, LA, frmo 1 January1 973 to 1 July 1974; it was one of several units/sites re-emplaced in the southeast following the appearance of a Cuban airliner at New Orleans for the sugar conference in October 1971.
Burns was designated M-118/Z-118 under the Manual program and operated gap-fillers at Burns Junction and Beulah, OR. The radars were the AN/MPS-7 (replaced by an FPS-7B in 1960) and an AN/FPS-6A (with a second added in 1959 and replaced by two FPS-90`s in 1963).
The 634th commenced manual operations in October 1955 and tied into the SAGE network in January 1961. Squadron assignments were to the 25th Air Division (6-53-10/54, McChord AFB), 9th AD (10/54-8/58, Geiger Field), 25th AD (8/58-9/58), 4700th Air Defense Wing (9/58-5/60, Geiger Field), 25th AD (5/60-7/60), San Francisco ADS (7/60-9/;60, Beale AFB), Reno ADS (9/60-4/66, Stead AFB), 26th AD (4/66-9/69, Adair AFS), and 25th AD 99/69-9/70).
There is one large enclosed radar building at the west end of the site, with an adjacent smaller, more modern concrete building with FAA markings; the latter appears to be a transmitter or relay facility, as there are no radars up here now. The largest cinder block structures are the ops building, admin, and a motor pool/garage building. Otherwise, it`s pretty much wall-to-wall Q-Huts; everything`s a mess, heavily vandalized with graffiti on every open surface. Sigh...(04 Oct 98/Oregon Outback Tour 4/98)