ST. LOUIS – The demolition of two buildings, vital to the history of St. louis and even the survival of the United States, is nearly complete.

Somehow, it’s been happening very much “under the radar.”

That’s no longer the case after an exclusive FOX 2 News report.

The structures are known simply as Buildings 1 & 2 and yet they are arguably among the most important buildings ever in St. Louis, perhaps only behind the Gateway Arch. 

“We kind of earned the nickname over the years … ‘Fighterland USA’ … and that’s still what we do here today: we build fighter jets,” said Allison Balderrama, a Boeing historian in St. Louis.  “Over the 60 or so years that we had those buildings, we built more than 10,000 aircraft (there).”  

The buildings, which were once emblazoned with the massive red McDonnell-Douglas neon sign, are now being demolished as part of Boeing’s $1.8 billion expansion in St. Louis. This will add more than a million square feet to its footprint and extend the “Fighterland” legacy that began when Curtiss-Wright Aviation constructed the buildings and produced over 2,000 aircraft for World War II. 

“It’s amazing the amount of things we produced there,” Balderrama said. 

She’s also the curator of Boeing’s “Prologue Room,” which is filled with exhibits, models and actually equipment from the rich history of aircraft production in St. Louis 

In 1946, McDonnell aircraft’s FH-1 “Phantom” became the first jet to take off from and land on an aircraft carrier. More revolutionary made-in-St. Louis fighters would follow, including the F-4 “Phantom II,” AV-8B “Harrier,” F-15 “Eagle” and FA-18 “Hornet.”

“The fighters McDonnell was producing out of there became the premier fighters in the Korean war and the Vietnam war,” Balderrama said. “A lot of the mainstays throughout the Cold War were built out of those buildings.”

So were the Mercury space capsules.

“We had the first spacecraft that put the first Americans into space (in the early 1960’s),” she said.

The Prologue Room has a piece of the heat shield from Astronaut, Gordon Cooper’s “Faith 7” mission.  46,000 people worked for McDonnell and then McDonnell-Douglas when the buildings reached peak production in the late 60s. 

When Boeing took over in 1997, St. Louisans were apprehensive about losing jobs and the “Fighterland” legacy. 

Former McDonnell-Douglas Chairman John McDonnell was not, telling FOX2 News in late 1996, “You cannot stay in one place during life. If you try to stay just the way you are, you’re not going to be successful.”

Boeing is now doubling down on “Fighterland” in St. Louis.

If you shed a tear over Buildings 1 & 2 being demolished, remember how St. Louis got that nickname in the first place.

“That nickname fell away for a few years but we’re bringing it back to life,” Balderrama said.  “This is ‘Fighterland USA’.  This is our bread and butter, what we do best here.”

Boeing has landed a reported $20 billion contract to build the U.S. military’s next-generation fighter, the F-47, in St. Louis, with a goal of delivering the first aircraft by the year 2030. 

The deal is expected to bring thousands of new jobs to St. Louis, though a specific number has yet to be revealed.