Midway became an "overlay" refuge in 1988, while still under the primary jurisdiction of the Navy. With the closure of Naval Air Facility Midway Island in 1993, there began a transition from bullets to birds, a change in mission from national defense to wildlife conservation.

Midway is one of the most remote coral atolls on earth. Yet, it is much, much more!

• the last link in a global telegraph system, inaugurated by a message from President Teddy Roosevelt on the Fourth of July, 1903;

• a landing site for Pan Am Clippers enroute across the Pacific Ocean in the late 1930s;

• the focus of a 1942 battle that changed the tide of war in the Pacific;

• from July 1942 to the end of hostilities, Midway served as a submarine base that aided in bringing the war to a close;

• naval air facility that played a pivotal role in support of the Korean War, the Cold War and the Vietnam War.