At the top of the 230-ft. high Mount Baldhead sand dune lies the
Saugatuck Gap Filler Annex Radar, a mostly-intact cold war relic that has been a community landmark since its construction in the 1950s. The decommissioned, semi-autonomous radar station was part of a network of such installations around the country, designed to help provide detection of a feared Soviet invasion from the north. Among other reasons, this location was chosen to provide strategic protection for Chicago and the heavy industrial lakeshore of northern Indiana.
The Mount Baldhead station was just recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places, securing it for future preservation efforts. While the fiberglass "radome" has a unique appearance, what is really special is the technology preserved within it and the small, attached service building, consisting of vacuum-tube circuitry mixed with nascent digital-age tech. and even an early type of modem for relaying information over telephone lines. Of 131 sites like this that were built across the country, only a few remain today, and this is the most technologically "complete' of them all. Pretty cool stuff!
Source:
The Lakeshore | Courtesy MI SHPO