Sheppard Air Force Base
Oklahoma
The land under this air base was sold to the U.S. Army for one dollar.
A Texas cattleman and oilman named Joseph Sterling Bridwell handed the U.S. Army three hundred acres for a single dollar. That patch of ground north of Wichita Falls opened as an Army Air Corps training center in October of nineteen forty-one. The first class held twenty-two aviation mechanics. They graduated the following February. Then it grew in a way nobody planned for. Basic training moved in. So did glider mechanics, flight instructors, and the flight engineers who ran the B-29 Superfortress. When the war ended, the field became a separation center where troops were processed out, and the population hit forty-six thousand three hundred and forty people. Then it emptied. The base was deactivated in August of nineteen forty-six and declared surplus. The Corps of Engineers took it over. For two years the Texas National Guard used the place, and then the new Air Force took it back and switched the lights on again.
This is the first of 2 parts. The rest runs about 2 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.
A Texas cattleman, oilman, and philanthropist, Joseph Sterling Bridwell, sold the land to the United States Army for one dollar.
Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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