Fort Worth's First Flight
Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
FORT WORTH’S FIRST FLIGHT IN DECEMBER 1903, THE WRIGHT BROTHERS ACHIEVED POWERED FLIGHT, BUT BY 1910, MOST PEOPLE STILL HAD NOT SEEN AN AIRPLANE. IN OCTOBER 1910, JOHN MOISANT OF CHICAGO FORMED A TOURING AERIAL DEMONSTRATION TEAM KNOWN AS THE MOISANT INTERNATIONAL AVIATORS. A GROUP OF AVIATION ENTHUSIASTS LED BY AMON G. CARTER, SR. PAID THE AVIATORS TO COME TO FORT WORTH. ON JANUARY 12, 1911, ROLAND GARROS OF THE MOISANT INTERNATIONAL AVIATORS, FLYING A BLERIOT XI, BECAME THE FIRST PERSON TO PERFORM A POWERED FLIGHT IN FORT WORTH. THE FLIGHT TOOK PLACE AT THE FORT WORTH DRIVING PARK, A RACETRACK NEAR CARROLL AND WEST SEVENTH STREETS. FROM THIS FIRST FLIGHT, FORT WORTH AND NORTH TEXAS DEVELOPED INTO AN AVIATION CENTER. ENCOURAGED BY AMON CARTER, BEN E. KEITH AND LOUIS J. WORTHAM, THE U.S. ARMY SERVICE CONSTRUCTED THREE WORLD WAR I PILOT TRAINING AIRFIELDS NEAR SAGINAW, BENBROOK AND EVERMAN BY OCTOBER 1917. THE ROYAL FLYING CORPS CANADA ALSO USED THE FIELDS FOR PILOT TRAINING DURING THE WINTER MONTHS. AFTER WORLD WAR I, EVERMAN FIELD BECAME FORT WORTH’S FIRST MUNICIPAL AIRPORT. HELIUM WAS DISCOVERED IN TEXAS DURING WORLD WAR I AND THE NAVY BUILT A LARGE EXTRACTION PLANT IN FORT WORTH. THE NAVY ALSO BUILT A DIRIGIBLE MOORING STATION NEARBY AND FROM 1924 TO 1929 FORT WORTH BECAME A STOP ON TRANSCONTINENTAL AIRSHIP FLIGHTS. DURING THE 1930s, FORT WORTH BECAME A FLIGHT-TRAINING CENTER FOR THE CIVILIAN PILOT TRAINING PROGRAM. CARTER NOT ONLY CONVINCED THE NAVY TO USE LAKE WORTH AS A SEAPLANE BASE, BUT WAS INSTRUMENTAL IN SECURING A LARGE DEFENSE PLANT TO BUILD B-24 BOMBERS DURING WORLD WAR II. THE SITE, KNOWN AS AIR FORCE PLANT #4, HAS BEEN IN CONTINUOUS USE SINCE 1942.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Only seven years after the Wright brothers flew, most Americans had still never seen an airplane. That changed for Fort Worth on January 12, 1911, when aviator Roland Garros of the touring Moisant International Aviators lifted a Bleriot XI off a racetrack near Carroll and West Seventh Streets. Boosted by promoters like Amon G. Carter, the city built World War I training airfields, hosted transcontinental airships, and later produced B-24 bombers—growing into a lasting center of American aviation.
Why it matters
This first flight seeded a century of aviation and aerospace industry that made Fort Worth a cornerstone of American air power.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In December 1903 the Wright brothers achieved powered flight, but the miracle spread slowly. By 1910, most people in America still had never laid eyes on an airplane. Flight existed mainly as a rumor from newspapers and magazines — thrilling, faintly unbelievable, and utterly remote from daily life in a place like North Texas.
That gap between headline and horizon is what made the traveling aviators of the era so electrifying. In October 1910, John Moisant of Chicago assembled a touring demonstration team, the Moisant International Aviators, and sent it barnstorming from town to town. For most communities, a visit from such a team was the first chance to see with their own eyes that a machine could truly leave the ground.
Fort Worth in these years was a confident, ambitious city, home to boosters who understood that the future belonged to whoever reached for it first. When aviation came calling, the city's leaders did not merely watch — they paid to bring it in, and then set about making flight a permanent part of the region's identity.
People & events
The pivotal day was January 12, 1911. Roland Garros of the Moisant International Aviators, flying a Bleriot XI, lifted off from the Fort Worth Driving Park — a racetrack near Carroll and West Seventh Streets — and became the first person to make a powered flight in the city. It happened because a group of aviation enthusiasts, led by Amon G. Carter, Sr., had put up the money to bring the touring team to town.
Carter did not stop at a single spectacle. Encouraged by him and by allies including Ben E. Keith and Louis J. Wortham, the momentum from that first flight turned into infrastructure. By October 1917 the U.S. Army had built three World War I pilot-training airfields near Saginaw, Benbrook, and Everman, and the Royal Flying Corps Canada used the fields for winter training as well.
The chain of events kept extending. After the war, Everman Field became Fort Worth's first municipal airport. Helium discovered in Texas during the war led the Navy to build a large extraction plant in the city and a dirigible mooring station nearby, and from 1924 to 1929 Fort Worth was a stop on transcontinental airship flights. Carter's hand appears again and again — persuading the Navy to use Lake Worth as a seaplane base, and helping secure the great defense plant that built B-24 bombers in World War II. That site, Air Force Plant #4, has been in continuous use since 1942.
Its place in the American story
This marker traces, in one place, the whole coming-of-age of American aviation. The barnstorming exhibition, the wartime training fields, the airship era, the civilian pilot programs of the 1930s, and finally the mass production of heavy bombers — these were the successive stages by which the entire nation moved from crowds gawking at a single flying machine to an industrial air power. Fort Worth lived every one of those stages in turn.
It also shows how thoroughly the two World Wars reshaped the map of American industry. Training airfields, a helium plant, a dirigible station, and eventually a sprawling bomber factory did not land in North Texas by accident; they reflected the federal government's wartime reach into every promising corner of the country. Communities that welcomed that investment early often kept the resulting industries for generations.
And it is a case study in the power of local boosters. Amon G. Carter and his circle turned a one-day exhibition into a century-long economic engine by relentlessly courting the military and the emerging aviation industry. Air Force Plant #4, running continuously since 1942, is the enduring proof that a city can, in effect, decide to become an aviation center — and make it so.
If you visit
Begin with a feat of imagination near Carroll and West Seventh Streets, where the old Fort Worth Driving Park once stood. Picture a racetrack, a curious crowd, and a fragile Bleriot XI rising into the Texas sky on January 12, 1911 — the very first time anyone here saw a powered flight. The everyday surroundings make the leap of the imagination all the more fun.
From that single point, the region unfolds like a timeline. The place names on the marker — Saginaw, Benbrook, Everman, Lake Worth — are still on the map, each once tied to training fields, a seaplane base, or the early airport. A road trip built around them turns an afternoon into a tour through aviation's whole first half-century.
For the traveler who likes the thread from past to present, the payoff is that this story never really ended: Air Force Plant #4 has been building aircraft continuously since 1942. Standing where the city's first flight began, you're at the headwaters of an industry that still hums today — a rare spot where you can see a century of American air power trace back to one takeoff from a racetrack.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Roland Garros
- · John Moisant
- · Amon G. Carter, Sr.
Themes & tags
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