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In order for the military to properly maintain its historic
properties, it must keep better records of all its property,
congressional investigators said.
No buildings or structures at Patrick Air Force Base are listed on
the National Register of Historic Places. But the nation's official list
of cultural resources worthy of preservation contains six entries from
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where space exploration took off in
the late 1950s and early 1960s.
"This is one of the most historic bases in the Air Force," said Mark
Cleary, chief of history at Patrick Air Force Base, which supports the
nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Cape Canaveral is where astronauts such as Alan Shepard, John Glenn
and Neil Armstrong were first sent into space.
The report, released this month by the General Accounting Office -
the investigative arm of Congress - studied historic buildings and
structures. It recommends that the Secretary of Defense require the
military to update its databases.
"Somebody says something like that every 10 to 15 years," Cleary
said. "It's simply unfair for someone to say the Air Force is not taking
care of accounting for its historic properties."
Clay Gordin, chief of environmental planning and conservation at
Patrick and Cape Canaveral, said databases serving both bases are up to
date and capable of quickly identifying historic properties.
The historic sites at Cape Canaveral primarily are launch complexes
and include such places as Complex 14 - where Mercury Friendship 7
lifted into space in 1962, making Glenn the first American to orbit the
globe.
The oldest man-made structure at the Cape, the Cape Canaveral
Lighthouse, is expected to make the national register this year. The
functioning lighthouse has served vessels in the Atlantic for 133 years.
Cape Canaveral continues to serve as a site for commercial, military and
classified satellite launches. But it's mostly revered for its history.
"There's not a day that I come here that I'm not amazed that I get to
work here," Cape commander Lt. Col. Randall Horn said.
The 15,000-plus acre station, about 20 miles north of Patrick, began
operating in 1950 as Operating Subdivision #1, Cleary said.
Patrick's 2,000-plus acres evolved into a support base for Cape
Canaveral after WW II, Cleary said. Before that, Patrick operated as the
Banana River Naval Station, which opened in 1939.
"There's really nothing at Patrick that meet's the criteria (of the
national historic register)," said Ken Warren, Patrick's chief
spokesman.
In order to make the register, a property must meet one of several
criteria, including an association with historic events or activities,
the GAO report says. The building also generally has to be 50 years of
age or older.
Gordin, chief of environmental planning and conservation at Patrick
and Cape Canaveral, said an inventory was taken in the mid-1980s and in
the mid-1990s to identify historic buildings and structures at both
bases.
Because the GAO's report was taken from a sampling of bases from
across the country, it does not provide a base-by-base breakdown of
historic properties. No bases in Florida were examined in the report.
The GAO report shows the military has about 17,300 historic properties,
or less than 5 percent of all Department of Defense facilities. The
numbers would be higher if the military did a better job of tracking its
properties, said William Crocker, an assistant director with the GAO.
The report, Crocker said, grew from federal regulations that require
specific uses and upkeep of historic properties. The report did not
conclude the military is mistreating or misusing its historic
properties.
"They're being taken care of," Crocker said from his office in
Washington, D.C. "The underlying concern is, perhaps taking care of
historical properties was taking an every-increasing share of precious
maintenance and repair dollars. But we didn't find that to be the
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