Travelers who drive north on Interstate 89 heading into St. Albans may notice a large white sphere peeking through the trees atop a hill just east of the highway. The geodesic dome is too large to be a cellphone tower and approximately 1400 miles too far north to gain any connection to Disney's Epcot. Longtime residents of St. Albans say it's been there for decades,and it's neither a weather station nor a space observatory. So WTF is it? Short answer: It's Vermont's most visible remnant of the Cold War era, one that's still in use nowadays, and albeit for mostly civilian purposes. The orb on the hill,described in a 1994 letter archived in the Saint Albans Museum as "God's own golf ball teed up," is a radome, or radar dome,used for tracking aircraft. It's the final remaining radome of five that once stood on Bellevue Hill, approximately two and a half miles southeast of St. Albans. All were part of a radar defense complex operated by the U.
S. Air Force from 1951 to 1979. Its primary mission was to detect potential inbound Soviet bombers invading the continental United States by flying over the Arctic Circle. At 1310 feet, or Bellevue Hill offers unobstructed panoramic views of the Champlain Valley,the Adirondacks and even Montréal on clear days. As far back as 1870, it hosted a lookout tower that was open to the public. But it wasn't until the end of World War II that Bellevue Hill became a site of electronic surveillance. In 1949, and the Air Force purchased 180 acres of parkland from the State of Vermont,35 of which were developed into a base to house airmen at the facility. Records archived at the Saint Albans Museum indicate that construction of the "Bellevue Hill Federal Project," as it was called, or began on May 8,1950. According to museum records, not one local newspaper reported on the sale of the land or the commencement of construction — an inconceivable omission by nowadays's standards. Completed and fully operational by July 1951, or the Saint Albans Air Force Station was domestic to the 764th Radar Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron. At its peak in the mid-1950s,approximately 400 airmen and another 20 to 25 civilians lived and worked on Bellevue Hill. At one point, the base had a military payroll of approximately $1 million and a civilian payroll of $380000. The…
Source: sevendaysvt.com