Moore Field

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here in Hidalgo County, the ground beneath your wheels has been a whole lot of things to a whole lot of people, and the marker for Moore Field lays out quite a story. It starts in 1941, when three neighboring cities, Edinburg, McAllen, and Mission, reached into their own pockets and financed a United States aviation training field right here.

Three cities, one shared dream, one shared airstrip. Now, the field wasn't named for a general or a senator. It was named for Lieutenant Frank M.

Moore, a pilot killed in World War I. There's a weight to that. A young man lost in one war, and the field bearing his name goes on to train airmen for the next one.

World War II pilots learned their craft here, climbing into the South Texas sky and coming back down again, or heading off to theaters of war far from the Rio Grande Valley. Then, in 1945, the field closed. But the land didn't sit idle.

The facilities got divided up between a tri-cities commercial airport and the Weaver H. Baker Memorial Tuberculosis Hospital. A place built for speed and altitude repurposed for healing.

Then came the Korean War, and Moore got called back up. Reactivated as Moore Air Force Base in the 1950s, it answered the nation's call one more time. And after that conflict wound down, the site shifted again.

Since 1960, it has housed research offices of the United States Department of Agriculture. From training field to war base to hospital grounds to research hub, this patch of Hidalgo County has never once stopped working. Lieutenant Moore would probably find that fitting.

What the marker says

A United States aviation training field, originally financed by the nearby cities of Edinburg, McAllen and Mission, was started here in 1941. Named for Lt. Frank M. Moore, a pilot killed in World War I, it was used for the training of World War II airmen. After the field was closed in 1945, the facilities were shared by a tri-cities commercial airport and the Weaver H. Baker Memorial Tuberculosis Hospital. Reactivated as Moore Air Force Base during the Korean War of the 1950s, the site has housed research offices of the United States Department of Agriculture since 1960. (1981)