June 12 is important day in base history Published June 8, 2011 By 81st Training Wing Public Affiars KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Even before there was an Air Force, there was a Keesler Field. This year, Keesler celebrates its 70th anniversary, making the base more than six years older than the service to which it belongs. June 12, 1941, the original 832-acre site was officially designated Air Corps Station No. 8, Aviation Mechanics School, Biloxi, Miss. That same day, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded contracts totaling $10 million to build Biloxi's technical training school. At the time, it was the most expensive government project to have been undertaken in the State of Mississippi. Before the land was transferred to the Army Air Corps by the City of Biloxi and Veterans Administration, it was known as the Biloxi Country Club. Actually, the area included not only three golf courses, but the Biloxi Airport, a baseball park used by the Washington Senators major league baseball team for spring training, the Naval Reserve Park and some private property. Later that June, the War Department renamed the new base in honor of 2nd Lt. Samuel Keesler, a native of Greenwood, Miss., who died behind German lines after being shot down in air combat with four enemy aircraft in the last months of World War I. Perry Jenifer, retired editor of the Keesler News, and Susan Griggs, current editor, contributed to this report.