Army base puts Arizona town on list of America’s top military cities
Sep 4, 2018, 1:00 PM | Updated: Sep 5, 2018, 8:04 am
PHOENIX — An Arizona border town with an Army base has landed on a list of top American cities for military.
Financial news website 24/7 Wall St. rated Sierra Vista-Douglas No. 21 in its compilation of America’s top 25 military cities.
Sierra Vista, which was the only Arizona area to crack the list, is near Fort Huachuca, an Army installation home to the nation’s Army Intelligence Center.
There are six other military bases in Arizona: Luke Air Force near the Phoenix suburb of Glendale; Barry Goldwater Range Air Force Base in Phoenix; Davis Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson; Yuma Proving Ground Army Base; MCAS Yuma Marine Corps Base; and Camp Navajo Army Base near Flagstaff.
Sierra Vista-Douglas fell in between No. 22 Valdosta, Georgia (Moody Air Force Base) and No. 20. El Paso, Texas (Fort Bliss).
The website chose the cities by looking over the number of military personnel and their families “stationed on bases located within metropolitan statistical areas, a geographic region defined by the U.S. Census Bureau that approximates the economic and social network surrounding a core city.”
Active duty personnel and veterans make up about 23 percent of the population in the Sierra Vista-Douglas area. Military members and families accounted for 7 percent of the population at 8,844, and veterans nearly 16 percent.
The Cochise County city is about 15 miles north of the border with Mexico, 75 miles south of Tucson. Fort Huachuca was declared a national landmark in 1976.
The base’s Libby Airfield shares the runway with Sierra Vista Municipal Airport and, according to the Army website, it was on the list of alternate landing sites for the space shuttle that were never used.
