In the 20th century, the village enjoyed a variety of fortunes. The distillery closed in 1926 (see below) and one of the most important historical locations in Easter Ross, Balconie Castle, was demolished in 1965. It had been an old seat of the Earls of Ross, but by the 1960s the owner could not afford to repair the dry rot. There was a RAF airfield constructed near Evanton in 1922, on Alness Bay. It was first known as the "Novar Base", because of its location on the Novar Estates, then later as HMS Fieldfare. It was serviced from Leuchars, and was used by the aircraft from the nearby Home Fleet base of Invergordon. The largest aircraft to have landed there was a USAAF B17. On Empire Day, 1939, RAF bases all over the United Kingdom were opened to the public, and the Evanton Aerodrome was the most northerly location to participate, attracting 9,000 visitors. In 1956, the airfield served as one of the launch bases of the GENETRIX program, to send stratospheric balloons carrying high resolution cameras over the Soviet Union. Of the 516 balloons launched from the five bases, 103 were launched from Evanton, of which 60 were successful, and 43 failed soon after launch, or gone stray, the base closed in the 1970's. However, the subsequent oil boom caused radical expansion of the village. It has been growing steadily ever since.