Air Activities of Texas, Corsicana Field

The flying school outlived its own war. Corsicana's airport history says the training field closed in October 1944 and served briefly as a storage depot, then passed to the city in 1946, when its buildings housed veterans and became the first campus of Navarro Junior College. The Handbook of Texas puts the first college class at 238 students in September 1946, with a move west of town in 1951. Some of the old buildings went along. An Army Air Force cadet memorial park, dedicated October 10, 2009, now carries plaques naming men who died in training here.

What the plaque says

Air Activities of Texas, Corsicana Field Prior to the United States entry into World War II, the U.S. Government contracted with a number of civilian flying schools to assist in training military pilots for the Army Air Corps. In December 1940 the Air Activities of Texas, Corsicana Field, was authorized to provide primary flight training, the second phase of a three-level process. Construction of the facility on a 400-acre tract of land began here in February 1941, and employed more than 250 laborers. In addition to a landing strip, they built hangars, barracks, offices, maintenance buildings, and a mess hall/kitchen. In March, 51 cadets arrived to complete 10 weeks of intense training. By 1943, each class contained more than 300 cadets. By 1944 8,480 cadets received flight instruction in 37 training classes. The flight school employed more than 550 civilians by January 1944, and provided a significant impact on the local economy. As the war drew to a close, the need for the flight school became unnecessary, and it closed. Post-war use of the property began in 1946 with the opening of Navarro Junior College, which occupied the site until 1951. The City of Corsicana purchased the site in 1963 for a municipal airport. (1996)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroleum Industry Park — 5.9 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 16 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 36 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.

More markers nearby

• Hopewell Baptist Church — 2.1 mi
• Angus Schoolhouse — 2.7 mi
• Hopewell Cemetery — 3.7 mi
• Hamilton-Beeman Cemetery — 5.2 mi