Area 51 Palmdale facility. A search for a suitable testing site for the U-2 was conducted under the same extreme security as the rest of the project. He notified Lockheed, who sent an inspection team out to Groom Lake. According to Lockheed's U-2 designer Kelly Johnson: The lakebed made an ideal strip from which they could test aircraft, and the Emigrant Valley's mountain ranges and the NTS perimeter, about north of Las Vegas, protected the test site from visitors. The CIA asked the AEC to acquire the land, designated "Area 51" on the map, and add it to the Nevada Test Site.
U.S. Route 51 in Louisiana intersects LA 38, the main east–west thoroughfare, at Avenue G. The highway curves to the northeast on the way out of town and continues for another to the state line. During this stretch is the final junction with a state route, LA 1054, in an area known as Greenlaw. Immediately across the state line, US 51 continues into the Pike County, Mississippi town of Osyka en route to McComb. The portions of US 51 not concurrent with I-55 are generally classified as an urban or rural major collector by the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (La DOTD). However, the