Universal City: Built on a Bet About an Airfield

In late nineteen twenty-nine, three San Antonio doctors pooled money to buy farmland northeast of the city. They were gambling that the Air Corps would build a massive new training field nearby, and that it would draw businesses and families. They were right on both counts.

Developer Aubrey Milner platted the tract on January thirtieth, nineteen thirty-one and named it Universal City, a nod to what he called the universal importance of the neighboring airfield. Nine months later, Randolph Field opened on October twenty-fifth, nineteen thirty-one. The first business across the railroad tracks from the base was a service station in nineteen thirty-two, and the town grew up as a support community for military personnel and their families. Today Universal City is a fully incorporated city of about twenty thousand, wrapped around Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, still doing exactly what those three doctors gambled it would do.