Military

Kegelman Air Force Auxiliary Field

Kegelman Auxiliary Airfield is located 45 miles west northwest of Vance AFB and 10 miles east of Cherokee, OK, on the Osage Plains, at an elevation of 1202 feet. The facility is a sub-base of Vance Air Force Base, and is utilized mostly for pilot "touch and go's" and fly-overs by Vance's 71st Flying Training Wing.

The airfield consists of two runways measuring 5503 x 150 ft.(1677 x 46 m) and 7946 x 150 ft. (2422 x 46 m). Also present on the facility are a fire station, on-site personnel offices, and a Next Generation Weather Radar system (NEXRAD) tower completed in 1993.

The 1,066 acre site is bordered on the east by marginal flood plain and on the west by the Great Salt Plains State Park and Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge. These wetlands attract large numbers of landbirds as well as waterbirds to the area. Kegelman Airfield has mixed grass prairie sandhills with some wetlands and patches of relatively undisturbed habitat. This varied, protected habitat provides home for a good variety of plants and wildlife.

600 acres of the site are undeveloped and relatively undisturbed. Located within this tract of land are 33 acres of wetlands. Although arguably insignificant in dimension, KAA's wetlands lie in close proximity to the Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge (SPNWR) and directly adjacent to the Great Salt Plains State Park (GSPSP), both of which encompass approximately 34,000 acres of pertinent habitat for avifauna.

Administrative responsibility for the airfield has shifted over the years from being a sub-base of Will Rogers Field during World War II, serving as a bombing range, to Clovis AAFld, Woodward AAFld, and Liberal AAFld until 1946 when the site came under the Enid AAFld (later known as Vance AFB). The site took on the designation of Kegelman Auxiliary Airfield in 1949. Prior to that, it had been known as the Jet Auxiliary Field, the Great Salt Plains Auxiliary Field, and, in 1948, the Great Salt Plains AF Auxiliary Field.