Expansion Bids were opened on 15 September 1953 for nearly a million dollars of work at Norton, including a 2,450-foot extension of the southwest - northeast runway bringing it to 10,000 feet, long enough for anything in the inventory. The extension requires the closing of the east end of Mill Street at Tippecanoe Avenue, and the relocation of the Pacific Electric track, both of which right-of-ways the runway will cross. The project included taxiways and drainage facilities. The widening of the runway by 50 feet to 200 feet was also proposed. Traffic to Redlands was rerouted off of Mill Street to Central Avenue. "Directives to acquire land for the runway lengthening were signed in June by the secretary of the Air Force and sent to the Los Angeles office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers." Logistics Depot With the air force moving into the jet age by the mid 1940s, Norton began overhauling jet engines in 1945, and the San Bernardino Air Materiel Area became one of three air force jet overhaul centers by 1953. To accommodate the largest Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombers, the main runway was extended to 10,000 ft by 1954. B-45 Tornado upgrades were performed at Norton in the late 1940s and into the 1950s. Effective 1 January 1955, the former Army Quartermaster depot at Mira Loma became the Mira Loma Air Force Annex, under the jurisdiction of the San Bernardino Air Materiel Area, announced Maj. Gen. Edward W. Anderson, SBAMA commander. On 22 March 1956, the San Bernardino Daily Sun reported that "In compliance with stated Air Force policy directing the depots to concentrate their immediate efforts in support of weapons systems with high priority and tactical value, Headquarters AMC recently advised San Bernardino that depot shops here had been selected to service and maintain F100 fighter aircraft. Moving with justifiable speed, the first group of aircraft are already on the base and have started through the IRAN [inspect and repair as necessary - Ed.] line. Numbers to be handled the balance of fiscal 1956 and subsequently is classified information, but the volume is sufficient to occupy some hundreds of NAFB employes [sic] in both Maintenance and Supply, as well as to fill the big hanger [sic] and apron with many of the hottest operational aircraft in existence. Present plans call for locating a double production line for F100s where the B45 aircraft is