K I SAWYER

Before B-52s came to K. I. Sawyer, a squandron of F-101B Voodoos arrived in 1959. Their mission was to intercept possible Soviet bombers flying over the Arctic Circle, the same path the B-52s were to use to rain atomic bombs on the U.S.S.R. Both a B-52 and the Voodoo above are on display down the road from the airport.

Once a bustling air force complex with 3,300 military and over 4,000 civilians, K.I. Sawyer is now a loose-knit community of 1,500 anchored by the region's airport. Where huge B-52s armed with nuclear bombs once took off and landed, today small Northwest/Mesaba, Midwest, and American passenger planes use the mamnoth 12,300-foot runway. It's long enough for the world's biggest planes to depart at maximum take-off weight. It doesn't seem likely that capacity will ever be needed again.

The Air Force wanted to use the U.P.'s northern location for the shorter Arctic Circle bombing route to the Soviet Union. The Air Force kept B-52s here from 1961 to 1994. F-106 fighter jets arrived in 1971 and stayed until 1985. One of these mothballed F-106s was trucked to Sawyer in the summer of 2005, joining a display of other aircraft now that used this base: a B-52, a Fighter Bomber 1-11, and the T-33 training aircraft.

Sawyer is one of the few U.P. towns not sited for the extractive industries of logging, fishing, shipping, or mining. The trip south from Marquette on County Road 553 takes motorists along an uncrowded highway cut through dense forests. Once at Sawyer, things are so spread out it's hard to know exactly where you are. Newcomers can even have difficulties finding the giant airport.

Sawyer was named after a Marquette County road commissioner who pushed for the first airport, built here in 1941. As the Cold War set in, the airport was leased by the U.S. Air Force in 1955, turning it into the giant 8+ square mile complex it is today.

After the air force base closed in 1995, Sawyer has become as much an economic development zone as a residential community in the former air base housing. Dozens of businesses have been attracted by tax incentives and the airport.

Touristically, the major lure here is snowmobiling. A spur leads west to the north-south Crossroads Trail. Snowmobilers can choose from a variety of accommodations at the Red Fox Inn, formerly officers' quarters. Tailwinds Grill &
Bar was built as the officers' club; its ballroom seats up to 400.

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