Under a variety of official designations, Sand Point, a peninsula in north Seattle that juts into Lake Washington, served for almost 50 years as an air base, aviation training center, and aircraft repair depot for the U.S. Navy. The development of the combat-ready naval air station on Whidbey Island made Sand Point superfluous as an air base, and in 1970 Sand Point changed to the Naval Station Seattle. In 1975 a large portion of the Navy's land was given to the City of Seattle and to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The city's land was largely developed as a park and named Sand Point Park (now Magnuson Park).

In this image PBY amphibian aircraft are being overhauled and rebuilt at the Sand Point Naval Air Station. The Consolidated PBY Catalina, also known as the Canso in Canadian service, was an American flying boat, and later an amphibious aircraft of the 1930s and 1940s produced by Consolidated Aircraft. It was one of the most widely used seaplanes of World War II. Catalinas served with every branch of the United States Armed Forces and in the air forces and navies of many other nations.

Caption information source: "Sand Point Naval Air Station: 1920-1970," by David Wilma, HistoryLink.org Essay 2249
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.