Area 51

The origin of the name "Area 51" is unclear. It is believed to be from an Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) numbering grid, although Area 51 is not part of this system; it is next to Area 15. Another explanation is that 51 was used because it was unlikely that the AEC would use the number. According to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the facility is called Homey Airport (XTA/KXTA) and Groom Lake, though the name "Area 51" was used in a CIA document from the Vietnam War .

Nicknames for the facility include "Paradise Ranch" and "Dreamland"; the latter is the approach control call sign for the surrounding area. Air Force public relations has referred to the facility as "an operating location near Groom Dry Lake". The special use airspace around the field is referred to as Restricted Area 4808 North (R-4808N). Lead and silver were discovered in the southern part of the Groom Range in 1864, and the English company Groome Lead Mines Limited financed the Conception Mines in the 1870s, giving the district its name (nearby mines included Maria, Willow, and White Lake).

J. B. Osborne and partners acquired controlling interest in Groom in 1876, and Osborne's son acquired it in the 1890s. Mining continued until 1918, then resumed after World War II and continued until the early 1950s.

The airfield on the Groom Lake site opened in 1942 as Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field with two unpaved 5,000-foot (1,524 m) runways. U-2 program Project director Richard M. Bissell Jr. understood that the flight test and pilot training programs could not be conducted at Edwards Air Force Base or Lockheed's Palmdale facility, given the extreme secrecy surrounding the project.

He conducted a search for a suitable testing site for the U-2 under the same extreme security as the rest of the project. : 25 He notified Lockheed, who sent an inspection team to Groom Lake. ] it was right by a dry lake. Man alive, we looked at that lake, and we all looked at each other.

It was another Edwards, so we wheeled around, landed on that lake, taxied up to one end of it. ] as smooth as a billiard table without anything being done to it. The lake bed made an ideal strip for testing aircraft, and the Emigrant Valley 's mountain ranges and the NTS perimeter protected the site from visitors; it was about 100 mi (160 km) north of Las Vegas. The CIA asked the AEC to acquire the land, designated "Area 51" on the map, and to add it to the Nevada Test Site.

: 56–57 Johnson named the area "Paradise Ranch" to encourage workers to move to "the new facility in the middle of nowhere", as the CIA later described it, and the name became shortened to "the Ranch". : 57 On 4 May 1955, a survey team arrived at Groom Lake and laid out a 5,000-foot (1,500 m) north–south runway on the southwest corner of the lakebed and designated a site for a base support facility. The Ranch initially consisted of little more than a few shelters, workshops, and trailer homes in which to house its small team. A little over three months later, the base consisted of a single paved runway, three hangars, a control tower, and rudimentary accommodations for test personnel.

The base's few amenities included a movie theater and volleyball court. There was also a mess hall, several wells, and fuel storage tanks. CIA, Air Force, and Lockheed personnel began arriving by July 1955. The Ranch received its first U-2 delivery on 24 July 1955 from Burbank, California on a C-124 Globemaster II cargo plane, accompanied by Lockheed technicians on a Douglas DC-3 .

Regular Military Air Transport Service flights were set up between Area 51 and Lockheed's offices in Burbank, California . To preserve secrecy, personnel flew to Nevada on Monday mornings and returned to California on Friday evenings.