A couple of Generals from Washington arrived on official business at BHOD. - - -
www.airfields-freeman.com
Black Hills Army Airfield, Igloo, SD
43.18 North / 103.85 West (Southwest of Rapid City, SD)
Black Hills AAF, as depicted in the 1960 Jeppesen Airway Manual (courtesy of Chris Kennedy).
Photo of the airfield while open has not been located.
The Black Hills Army Depot was built in 1942.
It consisted of a total of 21,095 acres,
and was intended for the long-term storage & maintenance of a wide variety of Army ammunition.
An airfield was built at some point between 1948-60 to support the depot operations.
The airfield was not yet depicted on the 1948 Casper Sectional Chart (according to Chris Kennedy).
The earliest depiction of the airfield which has been located
was in the 1960 Jeppesen Airway Manual (courtesy of Chris Kennedy).
It depicted the Black Hills AAF as having a single 4,800' unpaved Runway 15/30,
and two paved runways (2,800' Runway 9/27 & 2,600' Runway 12/30).
Taxiways led to a small ramp in the center of the field,
with a single small building (a hangar?).
The Aerodromes table on the April 1965 Casper Sectional Chart (courtesy of Chris Kennedy)
described Black Hills AAF as having three unpaved runways, with the longest being 4,800'.
The depot was closed in 1967.
The majority of the depot property was sold to the local government,
which has resold various parcels to a variety of private parties.
The Black Hills airfield was depicted as "Landing Strip" on the 1982 USGS topo map.
As of 1992, the airfield area was owned by Fall River Properties.
According to Nathan Barton, "The old Black Hills Ordnance Depot airfield was dropped from the list [closed]
because the asphalt has so deteriorated that you'd be better off trying to land in the hayfield BESIDE the runways.
Fall River Properties actually planned to destroy the old airfield to construct a giant landfill
for disposing of sewage sludge shipped on the railroad from MN & IL,
but the state denied them a permit after a whole series of lawsuits by environmental groups.
I did the environmental assessment for the Fall River Properties project, back in the early 1990s."
As seen in the 1997 USGS aerial view, the three unpaved runways still remained intact,
as well as a helipad & two small Quonset huts to the north of the runway intersection.
The airfield was not depicted at all (even as an abandoned airfield) on recent aeronautical charts.
The current status of the former airfield property is unknown.
A 1992 Army Corps of Engineers report provides further details of Black Hills Army Depot.
tested in Internet Explorer 8
tested in Mozilla Firefox 3.5.7
tested in Google Chrome