Beale Air Force Base, Perimeter Acquisition Vehicle Entry Phased-Array Warning System, End of Spencer Paul Road, north of Warren Shingle Road (14th Street), Marysville, Yuba County, CA

Significance: It is one of four large phased-array radars designed and built by Raytheon. PAVE PAWS was the first solid-state, phase-phase steered array radar operational in the world. The PAVE PAWS at Beale and that at Otis Air Force Base (today, Otis Air Force Station) on Cape Cod, were the first two radars completed in the system. The original mission of PAVE PAWS was to monitor potential Soviet SLBM launches and to serve as early warning of an attack on the United States. A second pair of PAVE PAWS radars followed in the middle 1980s, sited in Texas and Georgia are no longer operational. In 2002, Air Force Space Command initiated a major upgrade of the PAVE PAWS at Beale Air Force Base. the ballistic missile defense shield currently proposes to use PAVE PAWS as a platform for enhanced early warning radar, and to combine the system with missile interceptors.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N1091
Survey number: HAER CA-319
Building/structure dates: after. 1977- before. 1979 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: after. 1980- before. 1992 Subsequent Work