For close to a century, passengers flying into Waco have been treated to aerial views of the Brazos River weaving its way through downtown and the sunlight glistening off the towers of Baylor University. Waco today is served by the modern Waco Regional Airport. This was not always the case however, with commercial air service initially flying into Rich Field, an old army base near the current day Heart O’Texas Fairgrounds. The first commercial flight into Rich Field was a Travel-Air 6000 operated by the Fort Worth based Texas Air Transport (TAT) on March 30, 1929. The old base serviced commercial flights during the entire interwar period, and Waco was part of only two routes operated by TAT: Fort Worth-Dallas-Waco-San Antonio and Fort Worth-Waco-Houston-Galveston.

In 1941, the city of Waco purchased 528 acres in China Spring to begin construction of a new commercial municipal airport. When the United States entered World War II in December of that year, the Army Air Service leased the partially completed airport for use as a multi-engine flight training center, which they named Blackland Army Air Field. Under the command of Col. Emmett F. Yost, Blackland– named after the black soil of the area– rapidly expanded, operating its first flights by October 1942. Cadets at the airfield were graduates of pre-flight schools and were trained at Blackland to pilot B-17, B-24, B-25, and B-26 bombers. Training consisted of intensive flight instruction in Beechcraft AT-10s and Cessna AT-17s, as well as ground classes for radio and meteorology. Additionally, the diversity of squadrons present reflected the changing nature of the Army as a whole: the base was home to the all-black 357th aviation squadron, the 993rd quartermaster platoon, the 748th WAAC squadron, and the all-white 871st twin engine training squadron. Blackland closed as a military air field at the end of the war, with military flights shifting in 1948 to nearby James Connolly Air Force Base, whose airfield today serves as the airport for Texas State Technical College.

After Blackland was converted back into the Waco Municipal Airport in 1945, Braniff Airlines began operations, and Pioneer Airlines followed in 1947. Passenger numbers were initially high, with a combined total of 11,916 passengers in 1947 on ten flights per day. Continental Airlines soon added services as well in the 1950s and temporarily increased the profile of the airport by beginning flights on the large Douglas DC-3, a fixed-wing propeller aircraft that was known for its speed and ability to operate using shorter runways. Enjoying such options was short lived however, as in February 1963, the Civil Aeronautics Board declared that only one airline would be allowed to operate in Waco. Even with the objections of local civic leaders, the fuling forced Braniff and Continental (who had merged with Pioneer in 1955) to cease service in favor of Trans-Texas Airway’s new monopoly. This monopoly continued for the next eleven years until strikes temporarily postponed Trans-Texas Airway’s service, allowing Rio Airways to enter the Waco market with service to Dallas/Ft Worth (DFW).

Beginning in the 1960s, Waco Regional Airport also became a multi-use facility at the behest of the city council. The airport added such amenities as a skeet and rifle shooting range, a soap box derby race track, and the Central Texas Zoological Park, which later developed into the Cameron Park Zoo. The 1970s then saw both a temporary change in name and a decrease in passenger numbers for the Waco airport; briefly known as Madison Cooper, the airport suffered due to airline deregulation. Despite this, there was an increase in infrastructure, with National Weather Service buildings added in 1974 and a radar system installed in 1979. Unfortunately, the passenger number continued to decline in the 1980s in light of the expanded DFW and Austin-Bergstrom airports. Market instability increased when airlines such as Air Spirit and Texas Airlines operated out of the airport for as little as one month. Yet stability was finally achieved with American Eagle beginning service to DFW in 1985.

Waco airport entered the national spotlight briefly in 1987, when a plane carrying then-presidential candidate Al Gore had to make an emergency landing due to mechanical failure. Further, the dawn of the new millennium saw passenger numbers increase with Continental Airlines once again offering service to Houston in 2003. This led to a peak passenger count of over 150,000 that year– a number that fell to a total of 63,000 once United (who had by then purchased Contintental) ceased operations at the airport in September 2012. Currently, American Airlines (parent company of American Eagle) is still the only airline that operates out of Waco and offers short flights to Dallas.

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In the midst of war, some towns stay far removed from the action. For Waco in 1917, this was far from the case. Engineers and workers broke ground for Camp MacArthur training base in July, famously taking up over 10,700 acres of the small Texas city. But its smaller counterpart, Rich Field Army Air Base, had just as much to offer. After studying meteorological reports, topography, and location, the War Department and the Military Committee of the Waco Chamber of Commerce approved the 690-acre plot in August 1917.

Rich Field was born from an explosion in aeronautics. After a poor performance of US planes in Mexico, President Woodrow Wilson realized that American aircraft were disturbingly inferior to their European counterparts. American planes were slower, had no mounted weaponry, and lacked performance characteristics. Therefore, when the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Wilson approved $640 million to expand the air division of the army (the air force as a separate military unit did not yet exist). The money would fund the building of 6,000 pursuit planes, 3,000 observation aircraft, and 2,000 bombers. With such an increase in air power, pilots were now in high demand.

Sitting upon the land that is now Extraco Events Center, Waco High School, and Lions Park, the US military named this new sixteen hanger base after Second Lieutenant C. Perry Rich, who died when his plane crashed into Manila Bay in the Philippines in 1912. The first man to arrive was medical officer Major Emory C. Gaffney, followed by First Lieutenant Frederick T. Ealand and Captain J. S. Foster, who were sent to get everything in shape. Within two months, First Lieutenant Lotha A. Smith piloted the first flight out of Rich Field in a J-1 Standard plane with a 100 horsepower A7A Hall-Scott motor. By late November, twenty-five aircraft arrived to the $2 million base, and on a chilly Thanksgiving Day twenty-five eager cadets began their training in Standard J-1s, later to be replaced by Curtiss JN-4s.

While today seeing an airplane may be nothing spectacular, residents of Waco felt quite differently in the 1910s. The Wright Brothers flew for the first time in 1903, and a mere fourteen years later Waco residents marveled at the planes now flying regularly above their homes. They clamored to see the planes practice maneuvers out at the base. On top of free air shows, Camp MacArthur and the air base also bolstered the Waco economy by bringing in 35,000 soldiers and their families, ready to spend their monthly wages at the stores downtown. Waco residents fully supported the construction and operation of both the camp and air base, as it spurred tremendous growth and put Waco on the map.

Rich Field quickly developed a culture of its own. With its own publication, the Rich Field Flyer, enlisted men could keep up with the events of the war, the camp, other aviation training centers, and much more. The publication was intended first and foremost to be a morale booster, its pages filled with humor, cartoons, poems, and “kadetograms” from the men at the base. Kadetograms could be as simple as a shout-out to a friend or poking fun at an officer because they were all anonymous and simply grouped by squadron. The Flyer also had a sports section to keep everyone up to date on the rivalries between the base football teams, especially keeping tabs on Rich Field’s rival, Love Field Air Base in Dallas, Texas. The local YMCA used the Flyer to advertise its programs for the soldiers and encourage activities and attendance.

The three main units assigned to Rich Field were the 39, 150, and 249 Aero Squadrons. Other squadrons were equipped and trained at Rich Field to then be moved to other bases. Others also went straight from Rich Field to the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe and received further training from the Royal Air Force of Britain. In all, four hundred pilots were trained at Rich Field, and only eight training fatalities occurred. Most of the young men who made it through training saw combat in France.

After the war, the airfield stayed in business until the 1940s, much longer than its counterpart Camp MacArthur, which closed in 1919. Yet at the end of World War I, those at Rich Field knew the base would never quite be the same, and to them its future remained uncertain. In the final edition of the Rich Field Flyer, the men paid tribute to Waco:

"No history of Rich Field would be complete without a mention and sincere appreciation of the debt it owes to the citizens of Waco. A hospitable people always, they have left no thing undone to make the lives of the personnel of this post pleasant… We have railed at Waco, but then too ‘I have eaten your bread and your salt, I have drunken your water and wine, the deaths we have died I have watched beside, and the lives that ye led were mine.’ We have laughed together. There has been marriage and giving in marriage. We have carried our dead through your streets. And when this field echoes no more to the cry of ‘Contact!’ and the thunder of half a hundred motors, when we who played here our little parts in the Great Drama are scattered over the seven seas, be sure that each of us carries the most pleasant memories of this post and wherever two or three foregather the name of Waco will be mentioned with affection."

Later Waco Municipal Airport, the former Rich Field offered flying lessons and even ten minute flights to downtown and back for one dollar. One airline even operated limited commercial passenger service to Waco until the beginning of the Second World War. After World War II, the air base closed for good, as it was not large enough to accommodate the newest commercial planes now in use. The Heart of Texas Coliseum (Extraco Events Center) claimed some of the available land in 1951, and the city constructed Rich Field High School on the grounds in 1960, later to be renamed Waco High.

Rich Field blessed and invigorated the small town of Waco at a time when America needed it most. Though it was war that brought the men to Waco, the resulting growth and prominence changed the face of Central Texas forever.

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