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History of Groom Lake explored in scholarly article

The F-117 fighter jet was a secretive project when it was under development in Nevada.

In recent years, Nevada's Groom Mining District has come to the attention of the general public because of the secretive nature of the activities of various national defense agencies there and the persistent belief of many Americans that their own government is engaged in extraterrestrial research.

In an article in the spring, 1996, issue of The Nevada Historical Society Quarterly titled "A Mine, the Military, and a Dry Lake: National Security and the Groom District," Temple University historian Gary Paine chronicles the history of the district from the passing of the first immigrant parties of the 1840s through the Wheeler Expeditions, the mining era and the military period of the 1930s to the present.

Paine neither confirms nor denies the wilder speculations of those who insist that aliens and their spacecraft are being held at Groom Lake, "Area 51" or "Dreamland," in current parlance, but he does provide a solid history as well as some insights into the manner in which the U.S. government conducts military affairs and treats its own citizens, the Sheahan family in particular, who have had mining interests at Groom for a century or more.

The recent history of Groom is an integral part of the Cold War, 1945 to the present, as well as the history of the Nevada Test Site, nuclear weapons development in Nevada, Nellis Air Force Base, the chronicle of various governmental agencies and the budgetary subterfuge of Congress designed to cloak military intelligence activities and the development of new weapons systems.

Readers seeking an introduction to 20th-century Nevada should not miss this article. Copies are available at the historical society's Reno museum at a cost of $6. Mail orders are also being taken. Write the Nevada Historical Society, 1650 N. Virginia St., Reno, 89503. Add $1.50 for postage and handling. For further information, call the society in Reno at (702) 688-1191.