This short, silent film shows the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Colorado, and was probably shot shortly after the campus opened to the public in 1958. The Academy was established April 1, 1954, the culmination of an idea years in the making. Airpower leaders, long before the Air Force was a separate service, argued that they needed a school dedicated to war in the air, to train Airmen. Construction was completed in 1958 and the first moved into Academy housing that year, with accreditation following soon after. The first class of the Academy graduated and was commissioned in June, 1959. (It may be that the celebration shown at the end of the film is the first graduating class.)
The campus covers 18,455 acres (29 sq mi; 75 km2) on the east side of the Rampart Range of the Rocky Mountains, just north of Colorado Springs. Its elevation is normally given as 7,258 feet (2,212 m) above sea level, which is at the cadet area. The academy was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) and lead architect Walter Netsch. SOM partner John O. Merrill moved from Chicago to a Colorado Springs field office to oversee the construction and to act as a spokesman for the project.
The most controversial aspect of the SOM-designed Air Force Academy was its chapel. It was designed by SOM architect Walter Netsch, who at one point was prepared to abandon the design; but the accordion-like structure is acknowledged as an iconic symbol of the academy campus.
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