Wow. I lived in Oelwein, Iowa for the first 18 years of my life (I'm 19 now & at Wright-Patt AFB in Ohio) and I never knew about this place! A Naval base in IOWA! So weird: it must have been relatively big if it even had base housing. You bet I'm gonna go there next time I visit Iowa for Christmas. Thankyou so much for this post!
Oh and my dad said he knew of, but not a lot about, this base... I guess they pretty much stopped using it in the late 80's, but some is still used. So my best bet is that the government still owns it all.

Thanks for the information. You should definitely check it out while its still around. If you need any directions let me know. I've never been bothered there for looking around. If you have any more information feel free to add it. I really know very little about this place. Its pretty mysterious to me.

I would love to get directions to this place. I even did some internet searching, but since we don't know the name of the reservation/base then its hard to find anything in search engines.
Thanks!

Hey, I was wrong about WHEN this place was abandoned... I misunderstood my dad. It's been abandoned much longer... Anyway, I finally got a chance to go explore it a little on my trip back to Iowa. But since I only got to stay in IA for a week, I didn't get to pick a good "weather" day for it - it was FREEZING. So we didn't get too much exploring done, but we went inside that big round building at least. Plus, another bummer, my digital cam took a major sh*t on me, so I have nothing to take back. Did you see the old bomber jacket inside?
TTYL
PS, also heard the land is being "sold back to the indians," but the source is probably a dumba$$, so don't take my word for it.

Hey, I'm sorry I never gave you the directions to the place. I completely forgot to do it. Glad you found it though. How much is still standing? It looked like they were getting ready to do something with the neighborhood the last time I was there.

I heard the same story about being sold back to the indians, so there might be some truth to it. Actually, I think the person that told me that said the land has been offered up to several groups, but it was difficult to get rid of. Someday I'm going to make it back to Waverly to ask some locals about the place. I just haven't had a chance yet.

I'm from Waverly actually. I used to deliver pizza out at these neighborhoods and most people referred to it as an "air force base" or "radio tower base" in town, but I doubt my sources really knew for sure.

I found a large, rusty silo and one of those little military housing neighborhoods. I got lots of pictures on my SLR of the silo and some stairs going to nowhere that I will have to scan at some point. I wish I would have gotten pictures of the rows of military houses, but they were chained/flagged off and it was during the day, plus it was muddy as hell. I think the houses are probably gone now since this is a developing area.