OSCODA – A legend persists in Oscoda that before the closure of the Wurtsmith Air Force Base, which was decided 25 years ago in an April 1991 report by the U.S. Department of Defense, military officials paid servicemen in $2 bills one week, according to Jim Dunn, the former publisher of the Oscoda Press.

Before the base closed in June 1993, Dunn worked closely with the military to publish a weekly newspaper generated by the servicemen and said the story is most-likely just a story.

Regardless, he said, the idea behind paying the airmen in $2 bills was to show the financial impact the enormous military facility had on civilian businesses outside of the Concertina wire fence. Dunn said it may have never happened, but when Wurtsmith closed its doors, the impact was evident on Oscoda.

“There were a lot of people that said they hated the base and they didn’t like to see all the G.I. men marrying the local daughters, but when that base left you saw all the stores closing,” he said. “It cut our population by a big chunk.”

The military members not only lived in the community in housing, they used the stores, restaurants and other businesses and after the closure many set roots in the town.

The closure, which was announced in the 1991 Base Closure and Realignment Report issued by the DoD, projected the economic impact.

“It is projected to result in a population loss of approximately 9,400 persons, direct and indirect employment loss of just over 4,600 jobs, and regional income loss of nearly $94 million,” according to the report.

The move was going to save the DoD around $256 million, and an annual savings of $63.3 million.

At the time Dunn owned Cedar Lake Publishing in the late 1980s and operated out of a shop at Hobart’s Plaza in AuSable. He said the military contracted with him to allow airmen to use his printing facility to work on the base’s paper.

Dunn said even before the decision was made public, there were whispers and rumors spreading from the service members in his shop. Later it was announced publicly that Wurtsmith was on its way out.

“They had a town meeting I believe at the high school where they announced it,” he said. “We knew ahead of time. There had been rumors, it was sad for us because we were good friends with all the guys who did the paper.”

After the closure a few staff worked with Oscoda Township and the newly established Oscoda-Wurtsmith Airport Authority, comprised of members of local government in Iosco and Alcona County, to figure out what to do with the airport.

Dunn said the base reutilization was headed by Oscoda Township Superintendent Robert Stalker and Assistant Supervisor Gary Kellan, who now manages the airport.

Kellan gives a lot of credit to Carl Sax, who first operated an economic development office on the former base. He said one of the issues they had to deal with was a term coined as “looming vacancy.”

Sometimes this included leasing a building to a business for $1, but Kellan said the important part was to get people into the buildings to use them and create jobs in the community.

Whole neighborhoods of housing were shipped off the base, or torn down. And 25 years after the announcement, Kellan said the reuse is doing well.

“The township is out of buildings,” he said. “They have all of their buildings in reuse. On the airport side there are only six buildings left.”

Kalitta Air, which performs maintenance on many wide body aircraft and employs hundreds, is the biggest employer in the community. Kellan said the company’s presence in the community has helped it grow and the airport, which supported enormous B-52 bomber craft, lent itself to large aircraft maintenance activities.

“Getting that size aircraft hangar space is hard to come by, and secondly there wasn’t any debt load, we could originally bring them in there below market rates,” Kellan said. “We were trading space for jobs, that was the key objective originally; lets get some payroll generated for the community. People grumbled about ‘sweetheart deals’ but that got the lights on in the building and as the leases went up they were renewed at higher rates and jobs were created.”

Kellan said Kalitta Air has been able to expand, and facilitate the construction of several hangars on the airport, the most recent costing around $10 million.

As the years continue, Kellan said it will get more challenging.

“Before we have been able to trade space for jobs, and now the sales pitch is harder because you’re trying to convince people to make the leap to new construction,” he said.

Oscoda Township Supervisor Jim Baier was a government teacher during the closure and said although Oscoda is all right there was gloom and doom on the forecast. He said the school actually got extra federal aid because there were military children in classrooms and that funding disappearing was a concern for administrators.

There also was a lot of concern for educators in the district. Because of declining student numbers over the decades, schools closed and teachers were let go.

“I was one of the senior guys and relatively safe as far as losing my job,” he said. “But there were a lot of really good teachers that could see the handwriting on the wall.”

Baier said there was a major exodus of teachers leaving for new jobs.

Twenty-five years later Baier said there are good jobs for people in Oscoda from the aerospace industry and other large industrial ventures that have moved out to the former base. Unlike the old jobs available to civilians – bagging groceries, working at restaurants on base, or doing menial tasks – the new jobs are heavy industry and pay more, Baier said. He said it has taken a lot of hard work, but he believed Oscoda was heading in the right direction and said the future could be brighter for many in the area.

“I think we ended up in pretty good shape,” he said. “We ended up on our feet.”

Jason Ogden can be reached via email at jogden@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5693. Follow Jason on Twitter @jo_alpenanews. Read his blog, Sunny side up, with Jason at www.thealpenanews.com.