Warren AFB is the oldest continuously active military installation within the Air Force, established in 1867 (158 years ago) by the United States Army as Fort David Allen Russell.

The plans included a military installation on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains in the Wyoming Territory, to protect Union Pacific Railroad workers from hostile Indians.

From these pioneer origins, the base evolved from a frontier infantry and cavalry post into the largest, most modern strategic missile facility in the U.S. Air Force.

[4] On 4 July 1867, the Union Pacific Railroad established its mountain region headquarters at Crow Creek Crossing, later known as Cheyenne.

A few weeks later, the U.S. Cavalry moved from temporary headquarters in Cheyenne to a point 3 miles (5 km) west and established Fort D. A. Russell.

The dwellings were set in the shape of a diamond, instead of a rectangle, to protect against harsh winter winds that howled across the then treeless high plains.

In 1876, troops from Fort Russell participated in the Great Sioux Indian Wars, the same in which Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer's forces were defeated.

The Army built 27 red brick buildings for $100,000 to replace the older wood-frame structures, and planted thousands of trees.

In 1901, troops from Fort Russell returned to the Philippines to put down an insurrection for independence during the Philippine–American War laying ground for the occupation.

They returned with a Queen Mary Tudor cannon forged in 1557 and two of the three Balangiga bells, which had been used by insurrectionists as a signal to launch an ambush on American troops.

During this era, artillery units were assigned there, and the facility increased in size to accommodate troop training with the latest 20th century weapons.

From 1913 to 1916, during the Mexican Revolution, post artillery units were stationed along the border to prevent the struggle from coming onto American soil.

President Hoover issued a proclamation in 1930 which renamed the post "Fort Francis E. Warren," to honor Wyoming's territorial and first state governor.

In the harsh Wyoming winter, waking up in these barracks often meant shaking snow from one's blanket before heading for the just-as-cold communal showers.

Warren AFB had a number of strikes against it, including poor weather conditions limiting training to seven months of the year, lack of a flying field, and many inadequate buildings.

The project design for the above-ground SM-65D Atlas ICBM launch and control facilities at "Site A" was to be completed by mid-May 1958 and construction finished in November 1959.

Construction began at a location 23 miles (37 km) northwest of Cheyenne in late 1958 for the facilities of the recently activated 706th Strategic Missile Wing, which would control the ICBMs.

In the presence of General Power, the Commander in Chief of SAC, the first Atlas D complex was turned over to the 564th SMS and declared operational on 9 August 1960.

On 15 October 1962, Morrison-Knudsen and Associates won the contract to construct 200 LGM-30A Minuteman I missile silos over an 8,300-square-mile (21,000 km2) area of Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado, located north and east of the base.

Capable of carrying up to 10 independently targeted nuclear warheads, the Peacekeeper was intended to strengthen the ground-based strategic policy of the U.S.

Russian president Vladimir Putin agreed to follow a similar plan, signing the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty.

The end of the Cold War and combat during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 resulted in significant changes to the organizational structure of the U.S. Air Force.

Improvements in automation allow combat crews to more rapidly process message traffic and carry out execution orders.

[10] Aging equipment such as analog phone lines or computer systems that still use floppy discs have become a subject of media attention; Former missileers alerted the US television program 60 Minutes, which aired a segment about Warren AFB on 27 April 2014.

[11] The Congressional Budget Office has estimated a cost of $355 billion to upgrade the triad of the U.S. nuclear weapons systems including ICBMs, submarines and bombers.

The site itself, which is in private ownership, when viewed from aerial images looks as if it has been abandoned for decades, The above ground launchers and support structures left as they were when inactivated nearly 50 years ago.

The 90th Maintenance Group provides Minuteman III ICBMs along with command and control systems required to launch those missiles.

The 1,000 men and women of the group provide civil engineering, transportation and logistics, communications, contracting, and personnel and services support.

The base additionally maintains a pair of small turf STOL runways south of the helipads as a training area.

[7] Trichloroethylene (TCE) used to degrease equipment was found in groundwater in the West Cheyenne area from Belvoir Ranch to about 10 miles to the east of the site during the 1990s, as on numerous other military installations.