DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out here in Terrell County, where the sky goes on forever and the ground is about as flat and lonesome as anything you'll find in Texas, the story of flight landed earlier than most folks would guess. The U.S.
Government made its first investment in Terrell County aviation back in 1919. Not the jet age, not even close. Nineteen nineteen.
They built an airfield west of Sanderson, and the outfit stationed there was the 90th Aero Squadron, flying biplanes along the border. Biplanes. Two wings stacked on top of each other, buzzing along in the desert heat, keeping watch on the Rio Grande country.
When the 90th Aero Squadron relocated, the field they'd used didn't just go dark. It carried on as the East Dryden Aerodrome, an active field all the way until 1941. Then the world changed.
World War II brought a different kind of urgency to this stretch of West Texas sky. American Airlines and the government joined forces to build something new right here, a civilian intermediate field and an emergency military landing field both in one. The Civilian Aeronautics Administration supervised the construction, and that work wrapped up in October of 1943.
What they built was no small thing. Two intersecting runways, each one nearly a mile in length, laid down in rock asphalt on a caliche base. Out here, where the caliche runs deep and the mesquite runs stubborn, that's the kind of foundation you trust.
The facility was later named Terrell County Airport, and it kept right on working, hosting civil air patrol operations and military training exercises. From biplanes on border patrol in 1919 to a full wartime landing field in 1943, this corner of Terrell County has been earning its place under the Texas sky for a long time.
What the marker says
The U.S. Government first invested in Terrell County Aviation in 1919, with an airfield built west of Sanderson for the 90th Aero Squadron that flew biplanes for the border patrol. After the squadron relocated, the East Dryden Aerodrome was an active field until 1941. During World War II, American Airlines and the government joined to build a new civilian intermediate and emergency military landing field here. The Civilian Aeronautics Administration supervised construction that ended in October 1943. Two intersecting runways, each nearly a mile in length, were built of rock asphalt on a caliche base. Later named Terrell County Airport, this facility has also hosted civil air patrol and military training exercises.