(Last Attack Tour 1/97 – 9 Apr 97) – Under the original deployment plans for BOMARC, Paine was site number eleven, after Truax Field, WI, and before Portland International Airport. The Air Force intended to install a total of 4800 missiles at forty sites. Deployment was cut back to thirty-one sites in early 1958, and reduced again to eighteen sites in 1959, each with fifty-six missiles in two flights. Paine Field became site number nine, bracketed by Niagara Falls Airport and Adair AFS, OR.

On 15 September 1959 - as reported in the Everett Herald the following day - the Air Force formally broke ground for the Paine Field site. Base commander COL William Shaeffer and COL. R.P. Young of the North Pacific Corps of Civil Engineers, Army Corps of Engineers, presided over the ceremony. The John H. Sellen Construction Company of Seattle was the contractor for the $2,486,125 installation, which was to include twenty-eight launch shelters for BOMARC Bs, control, maintenance, assembly, storage and support buildings (in other words, a standard BOMARC facility).

On 23 March 1960, the Air Force cut back deployment of the missile to eight sites in the northeastern US and two in Canada. Construction at another six facilities - Paine Field, Adair AFS, Travis AFB, Vandenberg AFB, Malmstrom AFB, and Glasgow AFB - was immediately suspended.

The Herald covered the suspension on 26 March; according to the article, which included a photo (thank you!), work at the Paine site was mostly complete. In a letter to the Secretary of the Air Force, Representative Jack Westland of Everett said, "It doesn`t surprise me that the Air Force made its announcement Friday concerning its discontinuance of the Bomarc program in the West. The rapid technological development of missiles has caused a shift away from manned aircraft." Westland further suggested the installation be converted for use with ICBMs or ABMs. Obviously, it never happened. On 8 June Senators Jackson and Warren Magnuson announced the Senate Military Appropriations Subcommittee had restored $294 million to complete the BOMARC facilities at Paine Field and Adair AFS, and added $75 million to buy the missiles for the two site. According to the paper, "The two senators declared it a great victory for the Northwest, but a hurdle still faces the move in the House. Once the full Senate Committee approves the measure, it will be reviewed by a joint House-Senate conference committee. Jackson and Magnuson said they will continue the fight."

Well, the appropriations bill either died in the Senate or never cleared the joint committee, as the site was never finished. I might do some more digging later to try to determine when the Paine and Adair BOMARC sites were finally killed off. In the meantime, the 26 March article shows the fac, next to the base ammo dump, with access roads, twenty-eight shelters in various stages of completion, one large building (maintenance/ assembly?), and a couple of smaller structures under construction. I compared the newspaper photo with an aerial photo of Snohomish/Paine on a 1995 GSA sale announcement (courtesy of Michael Binder). Ah, there it is...All that was left on the site was one building, surrounded by a newer factory and what appears to be a sewage plant.

Worth a quick look, though. The site was east of Airport Road with access off 100th Street SW. I got there and found even more construction, mostly Boeing-related. Going up a paved dead-end access road behind a new post office put me in view of the one surviving building from the BOMARC installation, which probably was built after the missile site was cleared off; it looks more like yer std warehouse than anything I`d seen at other BOMARC sites. A faded sign on the building indicated "Contour Industries."

Sign...Well, chalk up my first almost-completed BOMARC site, with nothing left to show of its intended use. Slides will be provided the usual suspects...I wonder what`s left at Adair and Travis (I wonder how soon I can arrange to find out?).