Little LORAN Station on the prairie

A 700ft. tower juts out of the earth like some child's unfinished ladder to the moon about twenty miles from the little town of Havre, Mont. Here amid miles of open fields, sagebrush and cowpies, where the buffalo used to roam and the antelope still occasionally play, a sign at the entrance to a long rock-strewn driveway notifies everyone that, yes, this is indeed a Coast Guard unit.

LOng Range Aid to Navigation (LORAN) Station Havre was established in 1991, but most people in the nearby town don't even realize the Coast Guard is so close. The five Coast Guard members who work out at the tower are often mistaken for immigration officers but their work has nothing to do with customs or naturalization.

The Coast Guard uses the tower to provide navigation, location, and timing services for both civilian and military air, land and marine users for hundreds of miles in every direction. Cellphone companies and other industries also rely on the signals generated by the 400-kilowatt tower. Though opponents of LORAN argue that newer technologies such as GPS can do a better job, the difficulty of jamming the tower's signal along with its reliability ensure the station will be operational for many years to come.