Bravo 20: The Bombing of the American West

June 25, 2026

In 1986, photographer Richard Misrach gained access to the U.S Navy's "Bravo 20" restricted bombing range site by staking a mining claim under the 1872 Mining Law.

Image Johns Hopkins University Press 1990

In 1986, photographer Richard Misrach gained access to the U.S Navy’s “Bravo 20” restricted bombing range site by staking a mining claim under the 1872 Mining Law. For 18 months, he documented the scarred landscape in a series of color photographs. This book presents some of those photographs, the writings of Myriam Weisang Misrach and Richard Misrach, and their proposal to transform Bravo 20 into the Bravo 20 National Park, which would have been the first U.S. environmental memorial.