Genesee Mountain Park Training Annex (1955–70) was a U.S. Air Force radar station, an outstation of Lowry Air Force Base. It is a Formerly Used Defense Site (# B08CO0493)[1] of 3 acres (1.2 ha)[2] at Genesee Park (Colorado)[3]
Early in the Cold War, Lowry AFB supported Strategic Air Command nuclear bomber training (e.g., B-47, B-52, etc.) with automatic tracking radar (autotrack) and by January 1962, the "Tactical Missile School at Lowry" conducted Matador missile training "in the Black Hangar"[4] (the surface-to-surface missile used Matador Automatic Radar Control for autotrack.) Automatic tracking radar was also used in Korean War ground-directed bombing training for live bomb drops at ranges like the Lowry Bombing and Gunnery Range (the early 1960s Titan 1 sites near Denver also had tracking radars in a "guidance facility".)[5]
The Denver Bomb Plot was the call sign of an early Cold War automatic tracking radar station established for training and evaluation by August 25, 1949.[6] The station was operated by Detachment A of the 3903rd Radar Bomb Scoring Squadron, was commanded by Capt John A. Schlupp in 1949,[6] and conducted Radar Bomb Scoring of simulated bomb drops on mock Denver area targets by Strategic Air Command aircrews, including those of the 1955 SAC Bombing and Navigation Competition.[7] In 1959 the detachment moved 4 trailers,[8] after being designated Detachment 1, 11th Radar Bomb Scoring Squadron; to the La Junta Radar Bomb Scoring Site at the former World War II La Junta Army Airfield (122 people on 6 acres in FY1984).[9]