Elko Tract: The Decoy City That Never Was
Near Richmond, Virginia
Just east of Richmond in Henrico County, a two-thousand-two-hundred-acre tract of land carries the ghost of one of the stranger wartime projects in American history. During World War Two, the United States Army transformed the Elko Tract into a decoy airfield designed to confuse German bombers into attacking an empty field instead of the nearby airfield.
Soldiers using techniques borrowed from Hollywood set directors built a false landing strip arranged to match the real airfield, along with decoy city lights.
After the war the land was considered for an African-American mental hospital, a proposal bitterly opposed by white Henrico County residents. The project was partly developed before it was abandoned. Elko Tract returned to vacancy, and today its wartime roads lead nowhere, with a water tower, believed to date from nineteen fifty-three, among the few structures left.
