Niagara Falls Air Force Missile Site

The Niagara Falls Air Force Missile Site was a Cold War USAF launch complex for Boeing CIM-10 Bomarc surface-to-air missiles. It was operated by the 35th Air Defense Missile Squadron. Equipped only IM-99Bs (46 missiles: solid-state, solid-fuel booster), the site had 48 Model IV "coffin" shelters, after an initial design with a secure area of ~20 acre to have 28 shelters (the planned site had additional area for 84 "future shelters"). Launch control for the site's missiles was by central NY's "Hancock Field combined direction-combat center" (CC-01/DC-03) at Syracuse, New York. DC-03 was operational on December 1, 1958; (CC-01 was the "first SAGE regional battle post", beginning operations "in early 1959".)

Construction began in 1959. The missile site and squadron were activated on 1 June 1960, and missiles were operational on 1 December 1961. In January 1962 the RF-62E gap filler radar site at Brookfield Air Force Station in Ohio became a "major off-base…installation" of the Niagara Falls site, transferred from Wright-Patterson AFB. In 1962, command of the BOMARC base transferred from Col. John A. Sarosy to Col James L. Livingston.

The site was the first BOMARC B launch complex to close, on 31 December 1969. The closure was part of a realignment of "307 military bases". The missile site was vacant until turned over to the Niagara Falls Municipal Airport. The 1959 "Access Road" is now Johnson Street of the "Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station (NFARS) Fuel Depot", built over the area of the BOMARC shelters, which are still visible. The former northwest corner of the missile site is the current Tuscarora Road military gate.

The 35th Air Defense Missile Squadron (BOMARC) was constituted on 17 December 1959 and activated on 1 June 1960 in the Syracuse Air Defense Sector. It was transferred to the Detroit Air Defense Sector on 4 September 1963, the 34th Air Division on 1 April 1966, the 35th Air Division on 15 September 1969, and the 21st Air Division on 19 November 1969. It was inactivated on 31 December 1969.