Sampson Air Force Base

Sampson Air Force Base is a closed United States military facility, last used by the United States Air Force Air Training Command as a Basic Military Training Center. It was closed in 1956 and put into caretaker status.

As of at least the 2000s, parts of the facility have been converted to a civil picnic area called Sampson State Park. In addition, the United States Navy operates the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) sonar test facility on a part of the facility. However, most of the former base is abandoned.

The facility was established initially by the United States Navy as a Naval Training Station (USNTS Sampson) in 1942. The station was named after Rear Admiral William T. Sampson. The Navy obtained 2,600 acres of former farmland and also vineyards for the facility on the east side of Seneca Lake, New York. Construction of the facility took 270 days to complete. Along with the training station, a 1,500-bed hospital was constructed. The mission of USNTS Sampson was Naval basic training for large numbers of new recruits. During the war, over 411,000 recruits were trained at the station

In conjunction with the building of Sampson, the United States Army established its Seneca Army Depot adjacent to the Naval Station which was used to store a wide variety of Ammunition.

With the end of the war, USNTS Sampson was closed, and turned over to the War Assets Administration in 1946. Most of the facility was taken over by New York State, which planned to establish a two-year junior community college on the facility, keeping most of the buildings and using it as a campus. The USN Hospital was eventually taken over by the state of New York, renaming it the Willard State Hospital Sampson Annex in 1947.

The station was used by NYS as a temporary college for 15,000 GI Bill students in July 1946. (5 barracks were moved to Hobart College in Geneva, New York, 7 were moved to Syracuse University) Sampson College operated from September 1946 to June 1949 and had matriculated 7,500 students of which 950 received two-year degrees.

In 1949, the former naval station was turned over to the United States Department of Agriculture, which used the buildings as warehouses and granaries. More than 110,000 bushels of excess wheat and 15,000 sacks of excess beans were stored at Sampson. In addition, the State of New York, realizing the scenic location of the former Naval Station, appropriated^[when?] $50,000 for the creation of a state park at Sampson.

With the outbreak of the Korean War, the United States Air Force took interest in the former Naval Station for use as a Basic Military Training (BMT) Base. Custody of most of the property of the training center was transferred to the Air Force in 1950, and the Air Force named the facility Sampson Air Force Base on 15 November 1950. With the Air Force establishing Sampson AFB, the park project was cancelled.