Sewart Air Force Base

Sewart began as a wartime training base: after the order of December 22, 1941, six thousand workers erected some two hundred buildings and an airfield on 3,325 acres. Cadets in phase three of pilot training flew B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers, and the field took the name Sewart in 1950 for Allan J. Sewart Jr. of Nashville, killed over the Solomon Islands in 1942. In January 1960 seven ski-equipped C-130s of the 61st Troop Carrier Squadron flew from here via California, Hawaii, Canton, Fiji and New Zealand to Antarctica for Operation Deep Freeze.

What the plaque says

Sewart Air Force Base The U.S. military operated a base here from 1942 to 1971. First established as Smyrna Army Airfield, it trained pilots and air crews for B-24 and B-17 bombers in World War II. In 1948 the U.S. Air Force reactivated the base as part of the 314th Troop Carrier Wing and renamed it in 1950 for Lt. Allan Sewart. In 1957 it became a base for the 839th Air Division. For thirty years, the base played a vital role in shaping Smyrna's growth and identity. In 1971 it became Smyrna Airport and continued its aviation legacy.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stones River National Battlefield — 10 mi
  The Murfreesboro battlefield of December 1862, with a national cemetery built by Black soldiers, a Trail of Tears route and the story of the freedmen's settlement called Cemetery.
• Andrew Jackson's Hermitage — 16 mi
  Andrew Jackson's cotton plantation east of Nashville, where visitors can walk to the quarters, Alfred's Cabin and the Enslaved Cemetery as well as the mansion.
• Fort Negley — 17 mi
  The largest inland stone fort of the Civil War, built in 1862 on St. Cloud Hill by more than 2,700 conscripted Black laborers, hundreds of whom died.
• National Museum of African American Music — 18 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.

More markers nearby

• Sam Davis — 1.4 mi
• Smyrna Railroad Depot — 1.4 mi
• Wheeler's Raid around Rosecrans, December 30, 1862 — 2.5 mi
• Old Jefferson — 2.5 mi