Recent Findings on the old Yaak Air Force Station

Contributed by Dick Konizeski, Aug 1999

Yaak Air Force station was located on Hensley Hill in the northwest corner of Montana, close to the Canadian and Idaho borders, north of Troy, Montana and east of Moyie Springs, Idaho. Adjacent sites were Colville AFS, Wa to the west, and Kalispell AFS, Mt to the east.

Mail was delivered from Bonners Ferry, Idaho, about 40 miles from the radar site.

I’ve been corresponding with the local Lincoln County Library, and Chamber of Commerce of Libby, Montana, and others who are doing volunteer research at our behalf.

I’m currently receiving photocopies of newspaper articles beginning in 1952, and will send them in once I’ve compiled them into some sort of order.

The radar site is gone, and the blacktop road serving it was scarified after site deactivation. Hensley Hill has an elevation of 4972 feet, and access to the summit can still be made by starting near the Yaak school on Forest Service Road 5879, merging onto road 5886, and then on to 5892, which switchbacks up to the site. The road is supposedly crisscrossed with blown down timber and young sapling growth, but the Forest Service historian providing maps did not specify that.

The town of Yaak sits at the foot of the hill on the southeast side. There were two trailer parks at the time, one serving the military, and one civilian.

There was quite a relationship between the military and the locals, as often is the case in small communities. The high school and Yaak AFS teams played one another in basketball games; the site loaned local town affiliations projector equipment for movies; locals were provided employment during site construction, and the military spent their paychecks on the local economy.

During initial site operation the local populace was up in arms, as the radar site had a sewage problem and wanted to dump the raw sewage directly into the pristine waters of the Yaak River.

Found at http://www.myplanet.net/goodmantravels/montana_3.htm

A local watering hole called The Dirty Shame may be a source for any available information on the old Radar Site, as it sits at the foot of the mountain on which the site was located. The siren that was originally located at the site was taken down and supposedly is used to notify the locals when the Dirty Shame is barbecuing wild game.

I’ll provide more information as it comes in.

Dick Konizeski