He returned from his home in Nevada in mid-September for a reunion, something that the airmen who were stationed in Antigo do every few years. Paul Fisher, who served at the base as an administrative clerk from September 1960 through January 1965, recalled his time there fondly. When he bought the base it had been decommissioned for years, and all the buildings had been stripped of metals and other valuable remnants. His dreams have yet to be achieved, but in the meantime, he was happy to show a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin reporter around the base and reveal some of the history of property. He bought the property about 15 years ago, hoping that he could reuse the buildings to create a source of renewable energy. Kleisch is a 65-year-old man with a large smile and an interest in the history of the base. Today, the base stands empty, owned by civilian Roy Kleisch. The tiny residences once served as housing for officers who staffed the 676th Radar Squadron, a minute's drive away. During the height of the Cold War, the base served as a state-of-the-art warning system, searching for Communist planes or missiles. The house was one of about a dozen on the former base, arranged in neat little rows. The Antigo Air Force StationĪ knock on the door of one of the small houses was the culmination of a month of research into the base by a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin reporter. It was those fading yellow-and-black signs that led USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin to look back at the Cold War's quite-real effects on central and northern Wisconsin. In Marathon County, shelters still lie beneath churches and in the backyards of homes, and those who lived through the Cold War - especially folks who experienced the Cuban missile crisis - remember just how scary it was to go through every day with a gnawing fear of the Soviets. Today the empty Air Force base stands as a haunting reminder of the Cold War, those days of underground shelters and nuclear fallout drills when U.S.- Soviet tensions could break out into full-blown nuclear war. Although fallout signs still hang near the entrances to local buildings, they no longer carry the same meaning that they once did. The 676th Radar Squadron was decommissioned in 1977 and has sat abandoned ever since. Watch Video: Antigo's decommissioned Air Force base
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