A building that once served the first three classes of Air Force Academy cadets while the academy's permanent home was under construction in Colorado Springs has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.
A dedication ceremony recognizing this designation for Lowry Building 880, originally known as the Commandant of Cadets Building, will take place from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Sept. 4 at the building located at 1016 Boston St. in Aurora. The ceremony is free and open to the public, with a reception and open house following the ceremony.
The building-the most intact remaining resource associated with the original site of the U.S. Air Force Academy at Lowry Air Force Base from 1955 to 1958-housed the Commandant of Cadets, who was responsible for airmanship, military and physical training, including the development of such traits as leadership, character and ethics.
The Air Force is distinguished as the only branch of the military that had an interim site for its service academy.
Six other buildings from the academy's interim period at Lowry are still extant, but they have not retained their original appearance and/or lack the level of historic significance displayed by Building 880. The City of Aurora recognized this significance in 1995, when it designated the building an Aurora historic landmark.
Building 880, which now houses the City of Aurora's Morning Star Adult Day Program and Lowry Preschool, also is a rare surviving example of World War II-era military construction. Built in 1942 as an office and storage facility, Building 880 represented efforts to rapidly mobilize the nation's defense in the months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. With its H-shaped plan, gabled roof, drop siding and tall brick chimney, the building displays historic physical integrity.
In 1998, a Colorado State Historical Fund grant provided partial funding for rehabilitation of the exterior of the building for its present uses by the City of Aurora as the Lowry Intergenerational Center.
The Sept. 4 dedication ceremony will feature Mayor Ed Tauer; U.S. Air Force Academy Commandant Brig. Gen. Susan Desjardins; Dr. Gordon Tucker Jr. and Carl Loescher of the Aurora Historic Preservation Commission; retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Harold W. ("Pete") Todd, an alumnus of the Air Force Academy's first graduating class; Colorado National Guard Maj. Gen. Mike Edwards; Georgianna Contiguglia, state historic preservation officer for the Colorado Historical Society; the U.S. Air Force Academy Cadet Color Guard, and the U.S. Air Force Academy Band.
For more information about Building 880 and the ceremony, call Aurora History Museum executive director Gordon Davis at 303-739-6433.