Barron Field: Fort Worth's First Flying School
Texas
When the United States entered World War One in nineteen seventeen, Fort Worth found itself hosting three separate military flight training fields nearly simultaneously. Barron Field, half a mile west of Everman in southeastern Tarrant County, opened in September of that year, covering more than six hundred acres. It was named for Cadet Robert J.
Barron, a young pilot killed at another training school. Canadian cadets flew the field first, followed by American units in April of nineteen eighteen. At its peak, Barron Field housed one hundred fifty officers and nine hundred enlisted men, and sent six air squadrons to France before the Armistice in November.
The war ended before the field ever reached full capacity. It closed around nineteen twenty-one, reverted to farmland, and was eventually absorbed into the suburban sprawl that now connects Fort Worth to its southern neighbors.
