I wonder how many people driving from Granbury to Fort Worth realize when they get to the Walmart in Benbrook they are driving through the location of a WWI Training Airfield called Carruthers (or Taliaferro Field #3 or Benbrook field)? It is one of three airfields in the Fort Worth area rapidly constructed in 1917 to train aviators for The Great War.
The 1918 photo of Benbrook Field overlaid by John Wilson over a 6/12/11 aerial view
How many pilots trained at an airport that disappeared in the name of “progress”? I learned to fly at Oak Grove airport in the mid 80s that eventually became consumed by Spinks airport. I remember attending the 1986 Fort Worth International Airfest with lots of famous air show names flying off that 3400′ strip. My other touch and go airport, nearby Luck Field, suffered a similar fate for a housing development. Amazingly, Sycamore Strip is still hanging on, wedged between a railroad, apartment complexes, and houses.
I think I finally learned why the road that runs by my house is called Airport Road. There was a little grass strip south of Weatherford called Gaare Field listed on the 1957 Dallas Sectional.
This is just some of the history that I became enlightened on after accessing the Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields website maintained by Paul Freeman. I learned about his website when Paul was featured on the EAA Green Dot podcast a couple months ago. What an undertaking! He has been working on this since 2002 and relies on crowdsourced descriptions and images of 2860 airfields, in all 50 states!
Hope you find this website as fascinating as I did.
