The United States military has maintained a presence at Utqiaġvik, Alaska's northernmost point, since World War II when the United States Army established a crude radar site at Point Barrow, although the chance of any Japanese attack to the area was remote.

The U.S. Navy had taken over the existing civil airport and used its gravel runway to facilitate logistical support for naval assets in the Bering Straits and in and along the North Slope.

With the announcement of the Distant Early Warning Line (DEW) in 1954, Point Barrow was designed as a main site, and a military airstrip, separate from the civil airport was constructed in 1955; being used for transport aircraft and passengers to build the DEW Line stations along the northern Alaskan coast.

With the signing of the North American Air Defence Modernization agreement at the "Shamrock Summit" between Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Quebec City on 18 March 1985, the DEW Line began its eventual upgrading and transition, becoming the North Warning System (NWS) of today.

In 1998, Pacific Air Forces initiated "Operation Clean Sweep," in which abandoned Cold War stations in Alaska were remediated and the land restored to its previous state.