Beacon - Grand Forks, ND - Ground Based Air Navigation Support Structures on Waymarking.com

This retired and repurposed beacon and it's tower at located outside of the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences. At the tower is an informational plaque that reads:
Grand Forks Municipal Airport Beacon Tower
c. 1941 – 1964
Beacons and beacon towers provide pilots with a visual signal by which they could
Locate and identify airfields during night operations or periods of restricted visibility.
The rotating beacon cast an intense beam of light that swept the horizons several times per minute and could be seen by pilots up to forty miles in good visibility.

The Grand Forks Municipal Airport beacon tower was located a short distance to the
East of the airport terminal building at 802 North 43rd Street. The terminal was
Constructed as a WPA project and dedicated in 1941.

When the new Grand Forks Airport opened in 1964, the beacon tower was moved to
Lewis Boulevard and used as a ham radio tower. The tower and beacon were
Preserved and moved to this location in 2002 through the efforts of the Grand Forks
Historic Preservation Commission, the Grand Forks Office of Urban Development
and the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences.

Large areas along the Red River were damaged and cleared away for permeant flood protection after the flood of 1997. It was at this point that the tower was moved to the UND campus and put on display.

The Reference link below leads to a 2013 report from UND's Department of Special Collections. On page 10 the beacon is listed as item 48, there is information about the beacon and a photograph.

Reference: [Web Link] NavAid Type: Visual

Visit Instructions:
1. The waymark coordinates must be personally visited.
2. Give the date and a description of your visit.
3. Post at least one photo taken at the time of your visit.

Recent Visits/Logs:

There are no logs for this waymark yet.