I wondered why it was still there and found this:
That's a very cool back-story, Mike, thanks.
In more remote areas, the airways beacons and radio ranges were
manned by government employees who lived on-site and were
responsible for everything from weather reporting to maintaining
the navigation systems and powerhouse, and in some case the
auxiliary landing field that was co-located with some radio range
beacons. These airfields were not for general use, but were
provided so that in an emergency a pilot could identify a safe
place to land.
Originally the radio ranges were administered by the Lighthouse Service of the Department of Commerce and the attendants were called Airways Keepers. One such, Mr. Edwin Cruickshank, ran radio range site #32 at Medicine Bow, Wyoming, along the Omaha-Salt Lake route. Fortunately for us, his daughter Betty Jean, later compiled a wonderful history of growing up on the radio range, including many historic photos and papers from her father's service. While many deal with the mundane details of maintaining a facility and living quarters they offer a fascinating insight into a different era in the history of aviation and radio. Her document can be downloaded from the "Attachments" section at the bottom of this page:
Below is a brief history of the early days of aircraft
navigation for those interested.
73, Bob W9RAN
The lone pilot dressed in a leather flight suit who sat in an open cockpit battling the elements to deliver the mail was romantic but inefficient. The Postal Service began to focus on safety and reliability as well as on expanding operations. It established minimum lighting requirements for all airmail stations: a 500-watt revolving searchlight, projecting a beam parallel to the ground to guide pilots; another searchlight projecting into the wind to show the proper approach; and aircraft wingtip flares for forced landings. It also prescribed that all landing fields should be at least 2,000 feet by 1,500 feet (610 meters by 457 meters) to allow plenty of room for landings. As a final safety device, the requirement for a searchlight to be mounted on airmail airplanes was appended to the Post Office's set of requirements.
The use of lighted airways allowed pilots to fly at night, but pilots still needed to maintain visual contact with the ground. A really useful air system demanded two-way voice communication and the ability to find out about changing weather conditions while in flight. But in 1926, pilots could only receive weather information and details about other planes in the air just before takeoff. If conditions changed while flying, the ground had no way to warn them. A pilot, too, had no way of communicating with the ground.
The Bureau of Standards began to work on two-way technology in December 1926 at its experimental station in College Park, Maryland. By the next April, it had an experimental ground-to-air radiotelephone system operating that could communicate up to 50 miles (80 kilometers). Soon after, a transmitter installed at Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, on the transcontinental airway, successfully communicated with an airmail plane 150 miles (241 kilometers) away.
In October 1928, the Aeronautics Branch installed a group of new radio stations to complement the 17 it had inherited from the Postal Service. It also began sending voice information to help pilots navigate, first by radiotelegraphy and then by teletypewriter. By the end of 1934, there were 68 communications stations and many pilots could request navigation help by two-way radio.
In 1928, the Bureau of Standards also developed a radio navigation beacon system, and in 1929 the Aeronautics Branch standardized a four-course radio range whereby pilots listened to audio signals to determine if they were on course. The Aeronautics Branch stepped up installation of four-course radio ranges, and this technology became standard for civil air navigation through World War II.
In September 1929, Army Lt. James H. Doolittle became the first pilot to use only aircraft instrument guidance to take off, fly a set course, and land. He used the four-course radio range and radio marker beacons to indicate his distance from the runway. An altimeter displayed his altitude, and a directional gyroscope with artificial horizon helped him control his aircraft's orientation, called attitude, without seeing the ground. These technologies became the basis for many future developments in navigation.
The Aeronautics Branch began formal flight inspection of airway navigation aids in 1932. Six pilots were each responsible for about 3,500 miles (5,633 kilometers) of federal airway. Through 1935, the antennas for transmitting and receiving radio range beacons were improved and more instrument navigation tests conducted. September 1935 marked the first simultaneous transmission by radiotelephone of voice and weather information and radio beacon signals for navigation, and by the end of 1938, six stations were complete and 159 were in progress.
In May 1941, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) opened its first ultrahigh-frequency radio range system for scheduled airline navigation, eventually expanding use of such equipment to 35,000 miles (56,327 kilometers) of federal airways. In 1944, with wartime advances in radio, the CAA began testing a static-free, very high frequency (VHF) omnidirectional radio range (VOR) that allowed pilots to navigate by watching a dial on their instrument panel rather than by listening to the radio signal.
After the war ended, in 1946, the U.S. Department of Commerce took over 200 air navigation facilities that the U.S. military had built in 68 foreign countries. Domestically, in 1947, the CAA opened Skyway One, a pair of 40-mile (64-kilometer)-wide paths from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles. The next year it added Skyway Two between Seattle and Boston. In June 1948, the CAA installed the first high-powered, low frequency, long-range navigation facility on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, mainly to aid ocean flights. Similar 300-foot (91-meter) towers were built on both coasts and in Omaha.
By the middle of 1952, 45,000 miles (72,420 kilometers) of VHF and VOR airways, referred to as Victor airways, supplemented the 70,000 miles (112,654 kilometers) of federally maintained low frequency airways. The CAA began to shut down the low and medium frequency four course radio ranges.