SALINA, Kan. (AP) — It has been 50 years since the announcement that Schilling Air Force Base was closing rattled Salina residents.

The Salina Journal reported  that the economic disaster then spared no part of the community — real estate, retail, civic involvement, church attendance, population.

At the time the base pumped the equivalent of more than $154 million annually into the local economy. It employed 763 officers, 4,244 airmen and 357 civilians.

Salina eventually regained its footing. It acquired the base, and it was converted into an industrial site and a municipal airport.

Many had predicted Salina would be a city of 60,000 by 1974. Instead, it lost 13 percent of its population by the end of the 1960s. Not until 2000 did the numbers surpass those of four decades before.