Kulis Air National Guard Base

Kulis Air National Guard Base
Part of Alaska Air National Guard
Ted Stevens International Airport, Anchorage, Alaska.
Aerial photo of Kulis Air National Guard Base
Kulis Air National Guard Base
Coordinates	61°09′47″N 149°58′19″W / 61.16306°N 149.97194°W / 61.16306; -149.97194
Site information
Owner	State of Alaska
Condition	Closed
Site history
Built	1955
In use	1955-2011
Garrison information
Garrison	Alaska Air National Guard

Kulis Air National Guard Base was a National Guard of the United States facility in Anchorage, Alaska. The 127-acre (51 ha) facility adjacent to and south of Ted Stevens International Airport was home to the 176th Wing of the Alaska Air National Guard until that unit moved to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (in an area now known colloquially as Camp Kulis) in February 2011. The property thereafter reverted to ownership by the State of Alaska, which as of April 2011 had not yet announced plans for the property.

Kulis AGB is named in honor of First Lieutenant Albert Kulis. During a training flight on 14 November 1954 a formation of three F-80Cs led by Lt. Kulis passed in formation over the Goose Bay area, on the west side of Knik Arm. His wing man watched as Lt. Kulis' fighter went into a steep, diving turn and vanished into a cloudbank. Two weeks later, wreckage belonging to the jet was found in the mud at Goose Bay, but sank before it could be recovered.

The base opened during the spring of 1955 with the 144th Fighter-Bomber Squadron. After an informal vote among squadron members, the base was named after Lt. Kulis.

Kulis served as a major center for the coordination of disaster relief in the aftermath of the March 27, 1964 Good Friday earthquake. Guard members quickly converted a base warehouse into a shelter for civilians rendered homeless by the quake with a makeshift dining hall and more than 100 beds. By midnight of that day, 97 of the beds were filled.

Kulis would reprise this role less than six years later, when the Chena River overflowed its banks, causing a devastating flood in downtown Fairbanks in August 1967. Within five hours of the first call for assistance, the first of many C-123 Provider flights began ferrying disaster relief supplies to Fairbanks, and evacuating area residents to Anchorage. Evacuees received food, shelter and medical attention at Kulis; others were housed at the Alaska National Guard's Camp Carroll, on Fort Richardson. Over the next nine days the Kulis-based 144th Air Transportation Squadron (Medium) would fly 138 sorties with its C-123s and a C-54 Skymaster transport, carrying 2,371 people and more than 300,000 pounds (140,000 kg) of supplies.