Lowry Air Force Base (Lowry Field in 1938–1948) is a former United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) training base during World War II and a United States Air Force (USAF) training base during the Cold War, serving as the initial 1955–1958 site of the U.S. Air Force Academy. It is a U.S. Formerly Used Defense Site (B08CO0505). Background The City of Denver, Auraria, and Highland was chartered as the 1859 territorial capital after the start of the 1858 Pikes Peak Gold Rush; and the 1887 Fort Logan was established in the modern Denver Metropolitan Area. East of the state capital, military training at Montclair, Colorado, began at the future airfield when the 1887 Jarvis Hall Military School opened. Montclair was incorporated into Denver in 1903 and Jarvis Hall burned down in 1904. At the military school site the Agnes Phipps Memorial Sanatorium was established as a tuberculosis hospital in 1904 at 520 Rampart Way (cf. "East 6th Avenue and Quebec Street") by Lawrence C. Phipps Sr., and in the 1930s the sanatorium included 17 buildings designed by the Gove and Walsh firm. "After several fires at Chanute Field and deterioration of the buildings" in Illinois, a 1934 Air Corps announcement solicited a replacement training location and Denver submitted a bid. The City of Denver purchased the sanatorium for an airfield after a 1935 municipal bond vote. On 27 August 1937, the Denver Branch, Air Corps Technical School, was formed with Departments of Photography and Armament ("photography training moved from Chanute Field"), and the WPA converted the sanatorium grounds into a Colorado military airfield. In February 1938 the airfield being installed adjacent to Fairmont Cemetery was assigned to the Air Corps Technical School headquartered at Chanute, and "the Denver branch of the Army Air Corps became an Army post of 880 acres." Original Lowry Field The name Lowry Field was originally assigned to an airfield consisting of property taken over by the Colorado Army National Guard having a southern border along East 38th Avenue between Dahlia & Holly Streets. Named for 2d Lt Francis Lowry, the only Colorado pilot killed in World War I combat; operated by the 120th Observation Squadron, 45th Division, Aviation, of the Colorado Army National Guard. In 1924, the 120th began flying Curtiss JN-4Es (better known as Jennies) at the new airfield. An 28 October 1926 photo shows the Fokker BA-1 trimotor Josephine Ford of the Byrd