One of the old truck stops on US-40.
Near the Sheep Burial Site
Dugway Proving Ground access road sign
This looks like a sign from the early days
Dugway Proving Ground Main Gate
The casino is in Wendover on the Utah and Nevada border. Back 1959 the main route was highway US-40 which now has been replaced by I-80. It's about 120 miles to Dugway and we usually made the run in about 1:45 when we had a yen for the local attractions.
Looking east from Nevada toward Deseret and Dugway Proving Ground.
We would drive out to the salt flats when we were doing the trapline surveys.
This is new, whatever it is.
On some of the tests we set up a downwind station here at Knolls. While I was there highway 40 was never closed but on the occasions when the wind speed picked up and we had to suite up, we got some strange looks from passing motorists.
Looking south across the mud flats toward Dugway.
It was almost 40 miles out to highway 40 and another 5 or 6 to Delle, for something different, we would make the drive for a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie.
When you get to UT-196 ( I don't remember the route marker, we just called it Skull Valley Road) your on open range. On moonlit nights we would somtimes drive without headlight as you could see the cows in the road a lot further ahead.
The land of Goshute. I guess the government is really dumping on them now.
The U.S. Army's 1968 VX sheep kill in Skull Valley was caused by a aerial spray tank malfunction. Some of the agent continued to be sprayed as the pilot finished his run and began climbing above the temperature inversion. Winds then carried the agent over Dugway and off base to settle on the sheep. The Army buried a few thousand of the six thousand animals killed and compensated ranchers for their loss. They never have admitted responsibility for that "V" grid accident. Perhaps the compensation was just a friendly goodwill gesture.
Skull Valley is looks a lot different than memories I have of seeing two or three huge dust devils with rising columns of accompanying debris churning across the valley.
These antelope look a lot healthier than the ones we saw out on the test grids. You didn't have to chase them very far before they packed it in. Of course we avoided actually coming in contact with any animals in those areas. The rabbits were strictly a no-no. A few guys would keep a kangaroo rat for a pet, probably not a good idea as they could have been infected with the hantavirus.
The old sign at the gate read "Warning: Dangerous instrumentalities of war Are being tested on this post. Caution: Do not handle any unidentified objects. Report their location to security." The latter part is probably still good advice. What they do in the labs today must be really scary. I was far more apprehensive from the scuttlebutt about the "Tic Farm" than working with VX. The idea of raising tics to carry deadly organisms seemed like real doomsday stuff to me. Talk about a mosquito operation struck the same chilling cord. Forty five years later, I now I have to tape up my clothes to avoid lyme disease and an even deadlier tic born disease that appeared last year. I’ve taken dead birds to the state lab to find out if the neighborhood is in danger from the West Nile virus while listening to the news about outbreaks of (we did it with VEE) eastern equine encephalitis. Insects might be slated to take over the world so why try to help them?
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