Why Are There so Many Abandoned Military Bases?

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

All around the edges of San Francisco Bay you'll find reminders of a once robust military presence in this area. The Presidio, Alameda Naval Air Station, Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Fort Baker and a slew of others—all of them closed. The Bay was once considered a strategic military stronghold, the 'Gateway to the Pacific,' but at some point that changed. This week, in the first installment of a two part story, Pauline Bartolone digs into the history of why the Bay Area's military presence has mostly disappeared. Additional Reading: Read a transcript of this episode Sign up for our newsletter Enter our Sierra Nevada Brewing Company monthly trivia contest Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts This story was reported by Pauline Bartolone. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font and Christopher Beale. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Paul Lancour, Maha Sanad, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED family.

Transcript

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0:51.5	things Bay Area in 20 minutes or less.
0:56.0	From KQED.
0:58.2	It's hard to imagine now, but during World War II, the Bay Area was a major center of military activity in the United States, with dozens of military installations all over the region.
1:10.9	The United States becomes at last a two-ocean naval power,
1:15.2	as this mighty fleet takes its station in the mightiest of oceans.
1:19.6	Hundreds of thousands of people here worked for the armed forces at the time,
1:24.6	building ships, manufacturing supplies, training soldiers, and so much more.
1:31.6	But today, that robust military presence is largely gone. And what's left behind is mostly
1:37.8	real estate and wide open space. Back when he was in college, Bay Curious listener Cameron
1:44.0	Toby liked to explore one of those spaces,
1:47.4	Mare Island, the huge abandoned Navy shipyard near Vallejo.
1:52.5	My friends and I, we'd always go exploring the abandoned structures, and there used to be these
	...

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