Edward H. White II Memorial Hangar, Brooks Air Force Base

Brooks Field began as a school for teaching instructors. In 1917 the army opened it to train flying teachers in the Gosport System, a Royal Air Force method in which the instructor spoke to the student pilot through a tube. A balloon and airship school followed in 1919 and closed after a series of accidents in 1922. The School of Aviation Medicine moved here in 1926, and on Thanksgiving Day, 1929, Brooks staged the first mass paratroop drop in United States military history. Hangar 9 is reputedly the oldest hangar in the Air Force.

What the plaque says

Edward H. White II Memorial Hangar, Brooks Air Force Base Dedicated June 3, 1970. Edward H. White II Memorial Hangar Brooks Air Force Base Astronaut Lieutenant Colonel Edward H. White II (born at Fort Sam Houston, Nov. 14, 1930) was the first American to walk in space, while tethered to his Gemini spacecraft on June 3, 1965. Along with two companions, he died on Jan. 27, 1967, in a flash fire at the launch site while in training for the first moon flight aboard an Apollo spacecraft. The astronauts' flight heritage is tied closely to the pioneer flying schools of San Antonio. The father of astronaut White, Major General Edward H. White, learned to fly here at Hangar 9, as did Charles A. Lindbergh and many other pioneers. Hangar 9, one of over 30 of its type at Kelly and Brooks fields, was the standard hangar used by the U.S. Army Signal Corps to house the Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny" at flying schools during World War I. Brooks Field was named for San Antonio native Sidney J. Brooks, killed at Kelly Field, Nov. 13, 1917. Construction on Brooks Field began Dec. 11, 1917. Colonel H. Conger Pratt was the first commander. Long a primary school for heavier-than-air craft, it has been used for many pioneer roles, including development of aerospace medicine. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mission San Juan — 1.0 mi
  The mission near the river bend where the San Antonio got its name in 1691, with an unfinished church foundation and farm fields still watered by an eighteenth-century acequia.
• Mission Espada and the Espada Aqueduct — 1.8 mi
  The southernmost San Antonio mission and the oldest Spanish aqueduct in the United States, still carrying river water over Sixmile Creek to the fields after nearly three centuries.
• San Antonio Missions National Historical Park — 2.5 mi
  Four working parish churches on the Mission Trail south of downtown, with the visitor center at Mission San Jose, the Queen of the Missions, and the descendants who still worship there.
• Mission Concepción — 4.3 mi
  A stone church dedicated in 1755 that has never fallen into ruin, its convento ceilings still painted, and the ground where the Texas Revolution's fight for San Antonio began.

More markers nearby

• Mission San Juan Capistrano — 1.0 mi
• Stinson Airport — 1.5 mi
• Mission San Francisco de la Espada (Mission St. Francis of the Sword) — 1.8 mi
• Salado Valley — 2.4 mi