As you most certainly know, our flying field is part of a county park located on the grounds of an abandoned Nike missle site. As one who grew up in the area, I have fond recollections of visiting it on a Cub Scout field trip in the very early 1960s. I close my eyes and think back to those days and that field trip, and see a very different America, and a much younger, skinnier me. But enough of my Jenny Craig moment...

Spending so much time out there at the site this summer has renewed my interest in it, so I spent some time -- minutes, if truth be told -- and poked around on the internet to see what I could find out about its history. Read on for links to additional Nike site information. (nb: links will open in a new window or tab)

This link contains both pictures and historical information about Site D-57, which was our location's official designation as part of the Detroit-Cleveland defense area. The page is part of a comprehensive website that shows similar historical information for other area Nike installations that some of you may remember, such as the ones in Riverview, near Detroit Metro Airport and Rouge Park.

This page is part of the Parks & Recreation section of the Monroe County website. It's not all that interesting, but does contain potentially-useful information about the park, in general.

Click thumbnail for a satellite view of Nike Park!

This page was originally constructed to permit interested parties to search for lost aircraft by zooming into aerial photos, taken on Sept. 1st, 2007 by Jerry Jesion, of Nike Park and the surrounding area. It has outlived its usefulness for that purpose, but aerial photos are still fun to look at, so they're remain here for the enjoyment of those who may not yet have seen them. It can initially be difficult to locate the flying field in these photos. To help out, I've marked up one with some identifying text -- maybe you can check that out first. Also, note that the first picture isn't of the Nike Park area at all, and the last two are over the Float Fly site at Sterling State Park.

Click on any thumbnail to load the full-sized image. Use your browser's 'Back' button to return to this page after viewing the full-sized version. Or right click an image and select "Save target as", "Save picture as" or "Save image" (depending upon your browser) Please note that these are relatively large files, in order to have sufficient resolution of zooming in on them, so the load time will be somewhat slow. Alternately, you may click here to download a zip file containing all of the pictures. (approximately 25MB file)