Garner Army Air Field

The field covered 750 acres in the eastern corner of Uvalde, after a city bond election in March 1941 bought 575 acres for it. At its peak 125 instructors and 250 support staff worked there. When it closed in June 1945, the city persuaded the government to deed it the field as an airport. In the late 1940s Julian Dart ran flight training there and Trans-Texas Airlines used it; in the 1950s Chester Nielson's company turned wartime aircraft into civilian planes in one of the hangars, and the Williamson-Dickie company later ran a garment factory on the site.

What the plaque says

Garner Army Air Field Established in July 1941, Garner Army Air Field was named in honor of former vice president John Nance Garner, a Texas native. Hangar Six, a private flying school owned by John Lapham of San Antonio, provided flight training conducted by civilians with Army Air Corps officers as administrators. Other civilian jobs included maintenance and parachute packing; both men and women worked as aircraft mechanics. Fifty cadets reported for duty by October 1941 and began learning to fly PT-19A training aircraft. Tom Holland of Fayetteville, Tennessee, made the first solo flight. By the time the first class of cadets graduated, the country was at war. Later classes contained as many as 360 cadets from the U.S., twenty-one Latin American countries, and Turkey. Uvalde citizens of all ages befriended the cadets during their 10-week stay in the area. After deactivation in 1945, four hangars, the control tower, and runways continued in use as a city airport. The remaining ten on-story buildings became Southwest Texas Junior College which opened its doors to students in 1946. Area residents received flight training and certification at the field, and flight instruction became part of the college curriculum. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Uvalde Grand Opera House — 2.7 mi
  An 1891 Victorian opera house on the Uvalde square with a turret and a dragon weathervane, once owned by John Nance Garner and still staging volunteer theater upstairs.
• Briscoe-Garner Museum — 3.0 mi
  The Uvalde house of John Nance Garner, the vice president who made the office a power in Congress, now a free museum to him and to Governor Dolph Briscoe.
• Fort Inge Historical Site — 3.1 mi
  A county park on the Leona River below a 140-foot volcanic plug, where an army post guarded the new road to El Paso from 1849 to 1869 and Texas Rangers camped after.

More markers nearby

• USS Uvalde — 2.0 mi
• Reading Wood Black — 2.7 mi
• The Uvalde "Leader-News" — 2.7 mi
• Rice Hotel and Saddlery — 2.7 mi