Nellis Air Force Base
United States Air Force installation in Clark County, Nevada, United States
Nellis Air Force Base ("Nellis" colloq.) is a United States Air Force installation in southern Nevada. Nellis hosts air combat exercises such as Exercise Red Flag and close air support exercises such as Green Flag-West flown in "Military Operations Area (MOA) airspace", associated with the nearby Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR). The base also has the Combined Air and Space Operations Center-Nellis.
History
After World War I, Nevada and other western inland states were surveyed by Capt. Lowell H. Smith and Sgt. William B. Whitefield for landing sites, and by "mid-1925 the Air Service possessed information on nearly thirty-five hundred landing places, including more than twenty-eight hundred emergency landing areas, in the United States." The 1929 airfield (dirt runway, water well, and small operations shack) north of Las Vegas—operated by the 1925 Western Air Express for Contract Air Mail (CAM) Route #4, LA-to-SLC—was used by the Army Air Corps in the 1930s for training flights. After the Invasion of Poland in 1939, the "western site board" had located a southern Nevada area "near Tonopah, Nev" by April 1940 for a military range, and in October 1940, Air Corps Major David Schlatter surveyed the southwest United States for a military airfield. "The 60 × 90 mile area at Tonopah was transferred to the War Department on 29 October 1940" by Executive Order 8578.
Western Air Express Field / McCarran Field
Following "difficulties in securing the use" of the airfield north of Las Vegas for a Nevada World War II Army Airfield., the City of Las Vegas purchased Western Air Express Field, unofficially "Las Vegas Airport," on 2 January 1941, splitting it for Army and civilian use. Part of the field was renamed McCarran Field, becoming the city's municipal airport, and the other portion of the field was leased to the Army on 5 January.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Nellis Air Force Base” as united States Air Force installation in Clark County, Nevada, United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as united States Air Force installation in Clark County, Nevada, United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q735912. VIAF identifies the subject as 147724693. The Library of Congress control number is n78030162. Authority coordinates are 36.236, -115.034. 5 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925, 1929, 1939 and 1940.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Nellis Air Force Base”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Nellis Air Force Base primary sources, Nellis Air Force Base archive and Nellis research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Nellis Air Force Base”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Nellis Air Force Base” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.