In 1946 Virginia's General Assembly passed legislation creating the Peninsula Airport Commission (PAC) to determine a location for and establish a new airport or the cities of Newport News and Hampton. An agreement was reached with the US War Asset Administration in 1947 to transfer 924 acres (3.7 km2) of the former Camp Patrick Henry, a World War II US Army base, to the PAC as the site for the new airport. A Nike missile air defense base, known as N-85, still exists on the property, though abandoned since the mid-1960s.