The Mississippi Test Facility

Engines, engines, engines.

On October 25th, 1961, NASA announced that the Mississippi Test Facility, now the John C. Stennis Space Center, would be built.

NASA needed an area that was far enough away from major population centers, while still having access to utilities and water transportation.

NASA found a suitable area in a part of Mississippi that bordered Louisiana along the Gulf Coast. There was just one problem. There were five small towns on the land that NASA would radically transform from small logging…