The federal government also financed the construction of a number of manufacturing plants during World War II, all of which were phased out after the war. These included the Geneva Steel plant near Orem, the Remington Arms Plant in Salt Lake City, the Kalunite Aluminum processing plant in Salt Lake City, a vanadium plant at Monticello, a refractory plant at Lehi, an oil refinery at Salt Lake City, a radio tube plant at Salt Lake City, and a parachute plant at Manti.

After World War II, in addition to continuing the operation of installations like Hill Air Force Base, Ogden and Tooele Army Depots, and Dugway Proving Grounds, the federal government opened a number of new facilities. These included Hurricane Mesa, the testing ground of Project SMART, Supersonic Military Air Research Track, was a mesa just west of Zion National Park, near the town of Hurricane. Seeing the need for an ejection system which would allow pilots to be thrown clear of their airplanes without injury, the Air Force contracted Coleman Engineering Company, in 1954, to design and construct such a system. By using dummies and apes in their rocket sled experiments, the Air Force standardized ejection systems for industry-wide acceptance for both fighters and bombers. By December 1961, the facility was phased out. The following year, the Ballistic Systems Division of the United States Air Force chose Green River Utah as the launch site to test their re-entry systems on some advanced ballistic missiles.