Giant triangle in Wittmann, Arizona

Giant triangle in Wittmann, Arizona. This mysterious giant triangle is actually an abandoned Air Force Base called Luke Aux #4.

This field was also known as “Wickenburg Field” (which could lead to some confusion with Echeverria Field, which was actually located in Wickenburg).

Luke Aux #4 airfield was apparently closed at some point between 1956-66, and the property of this field was apparently transferred to the City of Phoenix. NASA’s view.

A variant name was Nadaburg; the present name is for Joseph Wittmann and his wife Eleanor van Beuren Wittmann, a couple who attempted several times to get approvals to build a dam project in nearby Box Canyon that would benefitted the town.This was to be a successor to the poorly engineered Walnut Grove dam that collapsed in February 1890 less than two years after it had filled. Eleanor van Beuren’s father was the nominal head of a group of East Coast investors that had funded what was then primarily a placer mining project. One of the Walnut Grove Water Storage Company’s engineers (not responsible for the design) was Lieut. Col. Alexander Ogden Brodie who was later appointed Arizona’s Territorial governor.
Governmental approval and adequate funding lacking, the replacement dam project plans faltered. A long projected time for repayment of supplemental Government funding killed Joseph Wittmann’s project in the 1940s leaving promises to Maricopa County families broken.

Credit: Google Earth