Alcona County, “First of the 83,” looks south to faraway Iosco County this month.

Harrisville is equidistant between Alpena and Tawas City, and between Ossineke and Oscoda. Is Alcona more in the orbit of Alpena County or Iosco?

Some say that Up North begins at the Alcona-Iosco county line. Reach Greenbush (motto: “People Loving People”), and you’re there! Stay in Oscoda, and you’re still kind of downstate, those some say.

But Iosco seems as fully Up North as Alpena, with one major exception: Wurtsmith. The sprawling Air Force base dominated the Iosco/Alcona corridor for 30 years. And will again. Soon.

In 1970s Harrisville, squadrons of B-52 bombers and F-106 fighters flew over regularly. Now and again, a passing jet rattled windows and nerves with sudden, jarring sonic booms. The spectacle of those roaring warplanes aloft never failed to stir awe. Fluffy contrails formed like furrows in a plowed field; the number of them depended on the size of the warbirds’ flock.

Back then, Wurtsmith AFB hosted scores of bombers and fighters, parked on the vast tarmac. A high fence topped by concertina wire and signs against stopping or taking pictures ringed the perimeter of the airfield.

Planes first came to Oscoda in 1925, when the U.S.Army Air Corps established an ice-landing practice facility on Van Etten Lake.

During World War II, some of the African American Tuskegee Airmen operated at Wurtsmith. People in Oscoda welcomed them, especially Mr. and Mrs. Welcome (their real name), who housed many of them at the Welcome Motel.

The WWII Hollywood movie “Fighter Squadron,” starring Robert Stack, was filmed there in 1948. It’s on YouTube. Check out the framed movie stills and clippings at The Hilltop Tavern.

The Strategic Air Command, formed for the sake of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the doctrine that has (so far) prevented WWIII, took over in 1961, bringing in the B-52s and F-106s. Planes from Florida crowded into Wurtsmith during the Cuban Missile Crisis, to get out of range in case war broke out, occupying every parking spot of pavement.

Wurtsmith was the bombingest base of the bombing campaign called Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. B-52s flew 14 hours from Oscoda to Saudi Arabia, refueled, released their payloads on Iraqi cities and troop emplacements, then came home. The B-52 named Black Crow Express was the bombingest bomber of the war! It was also the last plane to leave Wurtsmith Air Force Base when Congress decided to close it that April.

The closure removed 3,200 military personnel and more than 700 civilian jobs from the regional economy.

Kalitta Air, a company that charters and repairs big jets, came to the rescue a few years ago. Oscoda acquired the base and leased it to the enterprise, which now employs 1,200 people. Many of them live near work, in former quarters converted to apartments. Every military base — Air Force, Navy, or Army — has a little city at its heart, with housing, post office, Post Exchange store, recreation facilities, a place of worship, etc.

At Wurtsmith, all of that has been converted to civilian use.

The airport part of the base has massive hangars and warehouses. One enormous quonset hut of a warehouse is now a roller rink. The hangars are full of big planes that Kalitta aviation mechanics are restoring to service.

On a recent visit, I counted 30 airplanes on the tarmac, most of them the largest models ever built. Some bore the insignia of Germany’s Lufthansa, Surinam Airways, Allegiant, and many Kalitta Charter cargo jets. Others bore no insignia at all.

Now comes the Michigan Launch Initiative, a mash-up of Elon Musk’s Space-X and the U.S. Defense Department. The stratospheric public-private corporation will soon be making the fullest use of Wurtsmith’s three-mile runway to send satellites into orbit with “horizontal launches.” The goal is to seed the skies with 17,000 satellites. There are about 1,200 up there now.

Thousands of jobs are on their way to the far northern fringe of Iosco County, many for highly skilled — and paid — engineers and such. People with a Ph.D., which stands for Pretty Huge Deal. The newcomers will catalyze the service economy and clean out the listings of every real estate agent around. Already, rental units as far south as Au Gres are becoming scarce.

The denizens of the new, Space Age Wurtsmith ought to look north for housing and entertainment, to the area covered by this newspaper. Professionals who have been numbed by The Commute in their previous urban lives will find the scenic drive from the hamlets of Alcona and the environs of Alpena to be a pleasure.

Roll out the carpet to Iosco! The sky is the limit …

Eric Paul Roorda is a professor, historian, lecturer, author, and illustrator. He has called Alcona County home for 50 years.