A Brief Chronology of Navy Lakehurst

• 1915-1917 Ammunition proving ground for the Russian Imperial Government.

• 1917-1921 Acquired by U.S. Army as an ammunition proving ground. Named Camp Kendrick.

• 1921 Commissioned as a Naval Air Station (NAS) Lakehurst. Captain Frank Taylor Evans is the first Commanding Officer.    

• 1921-1961 The country's (and, perhaps, the world's) Lighter Than Air (LTA) Center. In 1961, the Navy's LTA program was terminated.

• 1937 Hindenburg crashes at Lakehurst.

• 1958 The Naval Air Test Facility (NATF) was established.

• 1973 The Naval Air Engineering Center (NAEC) was relocated from Philadelphia as directed by a Shore Establishment Realignment.

• 1977 NAS and NATF were disestablished and merged into NAEC.

• 1992 The Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWC) was established. NAEC becomes the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division Lakehurst (NAWCADLKE).

• 1994 NAWCADLKE becomes the Naval Air Engineering Station (NAES) for shore station management and the Aircraft Platform Interface (API) Group for technical mission support.

• 1994 NAWCADLKE and the rest of the AIRCRAFT DIVISION reorganize into a Competency Aligned Organizaiton.

• 1997 The Aircraft Division and Weapons Division are integrated into the Naval Aviation Systems Team's Competency Aligned Organization