The potential to drive in circles will likely deter few.

“I’m sure that people that haven’t been in here before are going to have some surprises,” said Verlyn Mueller, archivist of the Museum of Badger Army Ammunition that has been on the property since 2007. “Going out there, all you’re going to see is empty space. Badger has been erased from the map.”

In the early 1940s, dozens of farm families were removed from the Sauk Prairie to make way for what would become the world’s largest ammunition plant. The facility, initially called Badger Ordnance Works, employed more than 23,000 people during its 33 years of manufacturing during World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars. Production ceased in 1975 and the deconstruction of the plant has been underway since 2004.

Most of that work is now complete and the state is in the midst of finalizing a master plan that would lay out preferred uses for its 3,800-acre portion of the property. The Ho-Chunk Nation will have control of 1,500 acres and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Dairy Forage Research Center will oversee 2,100 acres.