Everyone who lives in Fallon — or visits here — knows about the Fallon Naval Air Station (NAS), about seven miles to south and east of the heart of the town. NAS is currently the United States Navy’s premier air-to-air and air-to-ground training facility and the home of Top Gun, made famous by the movie of that same name. Because of the current size and status of NAS, I was intrigued when I read the Churchill County Museum’s oral history of Carl Dodge, a portion of which touches on the beginnings of NAS. Dodge (1915-2006) was a lawyer, rancher and businessman who served as Senator in the Nevada State Legislature, representing Churchill County, between 1958 and 1980. He was also my neighbor, but I’ll leave those memories for another Postcard. His oral history was taken in 1994.
Dodge: “During the short period of time I was practicing law in Fallon after I got out (of Stanford Law School), I had an upstairs office in a building downtown on Maine Street (1942). One day a man came into my office. He was one of the biggest men I had ever seen. He was not particularly fat, but that might have been a nine-foot ceiling, and he was taking most of it. He was a big, broad man … his name was Bob Schmidt. At that time, we had a Junior Chamber of Commerce organization made up of a bunch of young guys. We had quite a lot of energy, but no money. (laughs) I was the chairman. Somebody referred him to me. Pat McCarran was then the senior US Senator from Nevada, and he had introduced the legislation that created the Civil Aeronautics Authority. He was the author of the bill. This guy was from an office down in Santa Monica. He came in and said he understood I was president of a Junior Chamber; then he said, “Pat McCarran sent me up here to locate a civil aeronautics field.” And he said, “I need to find out whether there are any suitable locations here.” I said, “Well, I can show you a couple.”
So we got in the car and I took him out to where the present city airport is. Then I took him to the present site of the navy base … it was all federal land. He took care of that part in Washington. And whatever he wanted, we took care of here in Fallon. The plans then were developed for the initial civil aeronautics runway out there. And this was an interesting thing. Plans were received in Fallon by Dodge Construction, Inc., on the second day of July. I was going to get on a train in Hazen to report back to South Bend, Indiana (as an enlistee in the US Navy) on the next day.
This was in 1942. Anyway, Dodge Construction got the contract for that original runway out there, and at a later point in time during the war the Navy took it over. They did some major runway improvements. They had to — that little runway didn't cut it. Dodge Construction and Silver State Construction — which was A.D. Drumm who had a construction company here — had a joint bid and were awarded the contract for the original 8,000-foot military runway out there. I was gone in the Navy for twenty-three months. The interesting end of that story is that I came on one of the small aircraft carriers as a passenger from Honolulu into Alameda. I had a 30-day leave to come home, and I got off the carrier and I went over to the Alameda Naval Air Station. I knew they were running a little flight back and forth daily for mail and that sort of thing from Alameda into Fallon, so I told them that I wanted to see if I could bum a ride with them to Fallon. About two hours later, they had this plane taking off and so we flew into Fallon, and I landed on a completed airport. I bummed a ride into town and the guy let me off at my mother's front door. She didn't even know I was home. I rapped on the front door, and I thought she was going to faint when she saw me. (laughter) That was the beginning of what became the ultimate naval air station. I can tell you this, and I've heard it from secretaries of the Navy, from admirals in the Navy, and everybody else — this is going to be the most important training station that the Navy has in this country.”
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