The opening of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station, El Toro, transformed The Irvine Ranch. From March 17, 1943 until the summer of 1999, the station trained military aviators for service in war and peace. The Irvine Ranch also shifted from farming and ranching toward residential and commercial development beginning in the early 1950s, after having become the world's largest producer of lima beans and feeding U.S. troops during World War II. In 1952, the Irvine Company chartered Irvine Boy Scout Troop 36, and in 1953 more than 50,000 Scouts from around the world came to The Irvine Ranch for the first National Boy Scout Jamboree held west of the Mississippi River. The Irvine Company built an eight-mile road connecting Troop 36's Scout House with the Jamboree's Tent City, and Jamboree Road remains as a tribute to that event. Even as small residential neighborhoods were developed along the coast, major ranching operations continued, and Bommer Canyon was the base of the Irvine Company's cattle operation for more than half a century.