McKinley Climatic Laboratory

Built in 1944. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. 8 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1938.

From the record

“The McKinley Climatic Laboratory is both an active laboratory and a historic site located in Building 440 on Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The laboratory is part of the 96th Test Wing.”
Wikipedia article McKinley Climatic Laboratory, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 5 National Register listings published here for Okaloosa County · listed in 1997 · category: Building · built in 1944.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 3 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
Address. Building 440, Eglin Air Force Base, Fort Walton Beach, 32542
When was it listed? October 1997
Category. building
Census division. Niceville-Valparaiso
When was it built? 1944
National Register reference number. 97001145 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Then and now

1938 to 1994

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 56 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering McKinley Climatic Laboratory, surveyed 1994

Topographic sheet covering McKinley Climatic Laboratory, surveyed 1938

Fires near this property

4 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 4 fires within 5 miles of McKinley Climatic Laboratory between 1999 and 2006, burning about 1,102 acres in total. 1 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Fireworks	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Railroad operations and maintenance	1
Natural	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
5 July 2006	Fireworks	under an acre	Florida Forest Service	830
9 June 2002	Natural	1,100 acres	Eglin Air Force Base	EGLIN COMPLEX
16 October 2001	Railroad operations and maintenance	1.0 acres	Florida Forest Service	not named
30 January 1999	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Florida Forest Service	not named

Every fire recorded in Okaloosa County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of McKinley Climatic Laboratory: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Niceville Mine	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Okaloosa County

Storms near this property

4 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Fort Walton Beach, the town this property stands in, in 4 storm reports between 1993 and 1995: 3 tornado, 1 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
April 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Fort Walton Beach	$500,000	High winds caused damage to a metal building at Fort Walton Yacht Club.
October 1995	Tornado (F0)	Fort Walton Beach	$10,000	A tornado briefly touched down as Opal moved ashore causing damage east of the center in the Fort Walton Beach area. Several trees and power lines were blown down.
October 1995	Tornado (F0)	Fort Walton Beach	$4,000	A tornado briefly touched down in Fort Walton Beach blowing down some trees and causing some minor roof damage to two homes.
October 1995	Tornado (F0)	Fort Walton Beach	$3,000	A tornado briefly touched down near the Fort Walton Beach medical center. Some trees were blown down.

Every storm recorded in Okaloosa County

Maps showing this location

8 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1938 USGS Mary Esther quadrangle1:62500 - 4 printings
1956 USGS Fort Walton Beach quadrangle1:62500 - 2 printings
1957 USGS Pensacola quadrangle1:250000 - 3 printings
1959 USGS Pensacola quadrangle1:250000
1960 USGS Pensacola quadrangle1:250000
1970 USGS Fort Walton Beach quadrangle1:24000 - 4 printings
1978 USGS Fort Walton Beach quadrangle1:100000 - 2 printings
1994 USGS Fort Walton Beach quadrangle1:24000

Listed places nearby

2 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Eglin Field Historic District	1.0 miles	1998
	Camp Pinchot Historic District	5.2 miles	1998

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 97001145 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Okaloosa County	All 5 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.