The city of Colorado Springs, Colorado is a crucial component of the United States Air Force command structure, being home to NORAD, NORTHCOM, Space Command, and the Air Force Academy.

The Air Force’s connection to Colorado goes back to the Cold War when the Air Force was created by the National Security Act of 1947, formally separating it from the Army which it served as a subordinate command during the war, and the development of ocean crossing bombers and missiles necessitated the need for strategic bases away from the densely populated coasts.

Ent Air Force Base in Colorado Springs was selected as the headquarters for the Air Defense Command in 1950, initiating a precedence for subsequent unified combatant and major operational commands responsible for defending against airborne attack basing in the area.

Development of a separate service academy dedicated to the air superiority mission advocated by air power advocates soon followed, with Colorado Springs selected as the site for the Air Force Academy and approved by congress in 1954.

As fitting for its forward thinking mission and jet-age formation, the Air Force commissioned Walter Netsch of the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (SOM) to design the campus in a distinct, modernist style, making extensive use of aluminum on building exteriors, suggesting the outer skin of aircraft or spacecraft. The first class of Academy cadets moved onto campus from their temporary facilities at Lowry AFB in Denver in 1958, and graduated its first class in 1959.