The Williams Bay Air Force Radar Station, home of the 755th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, formed part of a nationwide Cold War effort to defend the continent against possible airborne attack from the Soviet Union. In the years after World War II, as tensions between the United States and Soviet Union escalated, Air Force engineers worked rapidly to develop sophisticated radar technology for a nationwide network of defensive stations. The system did not gain wide support until the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb in August 1949. The Williams Bay station became operational in 1950. Built on one of the highest elevations in the region, its two radomes scanned the skies 24 hours a day during the ten years it was active. The 755th operated in relative secrecy, ready to provide instant communications about suspicious aircraft to the regional processing centers at Truax Field in Madison and O’Hare Field in Chicago. During the 1950s the Air Force rapidly built a nationwide network of radar stations, and by 1957 the system consisted of more than 200 stations. That year, the successful Soviet Sputnik satellite launch shifted the focus of aerial defense from aircraft to ballistic missiles, and the radar defense network was gradually decommissioned and consolidated.