Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
- Wendover Airfield, a historic WWII site, lost a building to fire over the weekend.
- The old morgue, used for storage, burned down, but the nearby historic power plant was saved.
- James Petersen emphasizes preserving Wendover's unique history and its role in WWII victory.
WENDOVER — Even in places that honor the past, it is important to celebrate the current season. That is why you'll see Christmas trees, lights and other decorations at the Historic Wendover Airfield near the Utah-Nevada border.
"I can't think of anybody who walked away with a negative experience," said James Petersen, who is the president of the Historic Wendover Airfield Foundation.
What Petersen really loves, though, is seeing people still coming here to learn about its history.
The crew that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan, helping the United States to win World War II, trained in Wendover in many of the buildings still on site.
"Wendover is the most original remaining army air force base in the entire country," said Petersen. "It is a unique museum. There is nothing like it in the country."
However, after this past weekend, there is one less building to see.
"For some reason, it caught fire and it burned pretty quickly," said Petersen.
Sunday evening, firefighters were called to the 900 block of 500 South in Wendover. The old morgue building was burning and it was already too late to save it.
"Unfortunately, these old World War II buildings are just old dry wood and they go up pretty fast," said Petersen. "The good news is, the building right next to it, which is very historic, is the power plant for the hospital and we were able to save that building."
The old morgue building was being used for storage, and although fire investigators are still figuring out an official cause, it is another piece of history lost forever.
"Wendover had over a hundred fatalities in training crashes, so it would have been used fairly extensively, actually," said Petersen.
Petersen is sad that the building is gone, but he is happy to continue to do what he can to preserve the base.
A new exhibit shows how pilots trained using only instruments back then.
"The link trainer was the first real pilot simulator. It was developed in the '30s," he said.
That, too, is a part of the history at Wendover Petersen hopes people see, because you never know when something might be gone.
"This needs to be saved," he said. "People need to see what it was like back then here and the contribution Utah made to winning World War II. This is the one place where people can really come and see these original buildings."
