Approved for Release: 2013/06/25
Secret NOFORN
Chapter 2
57
[figure]
are shown on current unclassified maps as a small rectangular area adjoining the northeast corner of the much larger Nevada Test Site. To make the new facility in the middle of nowhere sound more attractive to his workers, Kelly Johnson called it the Paradise Ranch, which was soon shortened to the Ranch.²⁴
Although the dry lakebed could have served as a landing strip, project managers decided that a paved runway was needed so that testing could also take place during the times when rainwater runoff from nearby mountains filled the lake (at such times the base acquired yet another unofficial name, Watertown Strip). By July 1955 the base was ready, and Agency, Air Force, and Lockheed personnel began moving in.
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²⁴ *OSA History*, chap. 8, pp. 2-6 (TS Codeword); Johnson, “Log for Project X,” 25-29 April 1955; Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson with Maggie Smith, *Kelly: More Than My Share of It All* (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1985), p. 123.
Area 51, the Ranch
Secret
Approved for Release: 2013/06/25