Meacham Field
Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On July 3, 1925, the Fort Worth city council approved a lease on 100 acres of property on Decatur Road for the city’s new municipal airport. It was built to replace the city’s first municipal airport at Barron Field, a World War I-era flying training field near Everman. After passage of the Air Mail Act (Kelly Act) in 1925, airlines began flying the mail over Contract Air Mail (CAM) routes. As headquarters of the 11th district of the U.S. Post Office Railway Mail Service, Fort Worth offered an ideal location to tie together ground and air distribution. On May 12, 1926, National Air Transport Co. (later United Airlines) flew the field’s first air mail flight to Chicago. On July 16, 1927, the airport’s name changed to Meacham Field, in honor of former Mayor H. C. Meacham. Soon several airlines began to offer passenger service on the CAM routes. By 1931, the airport had expanded to 280 acres. On April 4, 1937, Meacham Field’s new Art Moderne Terminal (the first air-conditioned passenger terminal in the U.S.) and control tower were dedicated. During World War II, in April 1943, American Airlines was awarded a contract to train U. S. Navy pilots at the airport on the Douglas R4D (DC-3) transport. In May 1943, the navy commissioned the airport as a naval auxiliary air facility and established a ferry service unit to coordinate cross-country fighter and torpedo bomber deliveries to the pacific and seaplane ferrying services at nearby Lake Worth. When Fort Worth International Airport opened in April 1953, commercial airline operations moved there. Afterward, Meacham Field Developed into one of the world's leading airports for general and corporate aviation, flight training and aircraft repair.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Fort Worth leased 100 acres on Decatur Road in 1925 for a new municipal airport, timed to the Air Mail Act that year, and by May 1926 National Air Transport — a forerunner of United Airlines — flew the field's first mail run to Chicago. Renamed Meacham Field in 1927 for a former mayor, it gained the nation's first air-conditioned passenger terminal in 1937 and, during World War II, trained U.S. Navy pilots and ferried fighters and torpedo bombers toward the Pacific. After commercial flights moved on in 1953, it became one of the world's leading centers for corporate and general aviation.
Why it matters
Meacham Field charts the birth of American commercial aviation — from airmail contracts to the first air-conditioned terminal to wartime pilot training — at a moment when cities like Fort Worth bet their futures on flight.
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Related people
- · H. C. Meacham
Related events
- · Air Mail Act (Kelly Act), 1925
- · First Meacham air mail flight, 1926
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fort Worth's First Flight
Fort Worth, TX
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.
Horace Seaver Carswell, Jr.
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Grand Prairie Airfield
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