Mt. Baldhead Radar Station Preservation Work Group

01/10/2023

08/19/2021

Thank you to the Saugatuck-Douglas Rotary Club, Saugatuck High School Interact Club and the Mount Baldhead Workgroup for their help to clear overgrowth at the RADAR station!

08/10/2021

The Mount Baldhead RADAR Station Workgroup is working to preserve the history of the Gap-Filler Annex on the top of Mount Baldhead.

If you have any pieces of equipment from the building that you would like to donate to the collection, please contact us at: [email protected]

We will gladly come pick up whatever you might have, no questions asked.

07/14/2021

07/14/2021

The Mt. Baldhead Radar Station is a community icon in Saugatuck. It is a unique reminder of our nation’s Cold War of the 1950s and 1960s, when the escalating arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union had many Americans living in fear of an atomic bomb attack.
The radar station was built at the dawn of the computer age. In 1949, IBM and MIT teamed up to create a sophisticated computerized air defense network to watch over our northern border. This system collected data from hundreds of radar monitors across the country, feeding the information into one of the first true computer networks, in order to keep an eye out for Soviet invaders.
The Mt. Baldhead Radar Station is one of the few, if not the only, remaining radar station of the original network.
We welcome you to follow us as we begin our journey of saving, preserving, and promoting this historic local structure.