Philip H. Parker Post No. 2438, V.F.W.
Bay City, Matagorda County, Texas
Marker Inscription
THE VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS OF THE UNITED STATES (VFW), FOUNDED IN 1899, TRACES ITS ROOTS TO MILITARY VETERANS SECURING RIGHTS AND BENEFITS FOR THEIR SERVICE. FOLLOWING AN INITIAL JUL. 21, 1940 MEETING AT THE OLD BANDSTAND ON THE COURTHOUSE SQUARE, BAY CITY VFW POST NO. 2438 ORGANIZED AT A NOV. 24, 1940 VFW MEETING IN TEXAS CITY. IN BAY CITY’S CITY HALL AUDITORIUM, WORLD WAR I VETERAN COL. WYATT O. SELKIRK (1881-1971) PRESIDED AS THE FIRST POST COMMANDER OF 18 CHARTER MEMBERS. THE POST ALSO HELD MEETINGS AT THE COURTHOUSE, THE BONEY BUILDING, I.O.O.F. HALL AND THE U.S.O. BUILDING. POST NO. 2438 FOUND ITS FIRST HOME IN 1948, ON LAND OWNED BY HERBERT AND ALLIE PARKER AT BUCKS BAYOU AND HAMMAN ROADS. THE POST ALSO CHANGED ITS NAME TO HONOR THE PARKERS’ SON, ARMY AIR FORCES CAPT. PHILIP HACKLEY PARKER (1920-1945). PARKER WAS KILLED IN ACTION BY JAPANESE GROUND FIRE WHILE PILOTING HIS P-51D MUSTANG OVER HSIANG CH’ENG, CHINA, ON MAR. 23, 1945. A SURPLUS STRUCTURE MOVED FROM CAMP HULEN IN PALACIOS BECAME A MEETING HALL AND CANTEEN. BEGINNING IN 1954, THE POST AGAIN MET IN SEVERAL LOCATIONS UNTIL A NEW POST HOME WAS DEDICATED ON NORTH HWY. 60 IN 1980. THIS BUILDING AND ALL CONTENTS WERE DESTROYED BY FIRE IN 2000, AND A NEW BUILDING WAS DEDICATED IN 2001. THE POST AND ITS LADIES AUXILIARY (FOUNDED 1947) HAVE SUPPORTED THE COMMUNITY IN SEVERAL WAYS. LONG-STANDING ACTIVITIES INCLUDE AID FOR NEEDY VETERANS, SUPPORT OF CURRENT MILITARY PERSONNEL, STUDENT ESSAY CONTESTS AND SCHOLARSHIPS, AND FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS, LAW ENFORCEMENT, AND CHARITABLE WORK OF OTHER ORGANIZATIONS. THE POST HAS ALSO HELPED IDENTIFY THE GRAVES OF MORE THAN 3,000 VETERANS IN MATAGORDA COUNTY. POST NO. 2438 CONTINUES TO PROVIDE PATRIOTISM AND ENCOURAGEMENT TO ITS COMMUNITY.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Chartered in 1940, this Bay City VFW post first met under a World War I veteran, Col. Wyatt O. Selkirk, and gathered in courthouses, halls, and USO buildings before finding a home in 1948. It took the name of Army Air Forces Capt. Philip Hackley Parker, killed in action in 1945 while piloting his P-51D Mustang over China. Through fire and rebuilding, the post and its ladies auxiliary have aided needy veterans, sponsored student contests, and helped identify the graves of more than 3,000 Matagorda County veterans.
Why it matters
Named for a young pilot lost in the skies over wartime China, the post shows how communities turned personal wartime sacrifice into lasting service to veterans and neighbors.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The Veterans of Foreign Wars grew out of a simple idea born at the close of the 19th century: that men who had served their country overseas deserved someone to fight for their rights and benefits once they came home. Founded in 1899, the VFW spread across the country post by post, each one a local outpost of that mission. By 1940, as a new and far larger war engulfed the world, communities everywhere were organizing.
Bay City, the seat of Matagorda County on the Texas Gulf Coast, was one of them. When the post first stirred to life in 1940, the United States had not yet entered World War II, but the country was mobilizing fast, and the coastal plains of Texas would soon send a generation of young men into uniform. A veterans' post was a way for a small town to prepare to care for its own.
The post's early, wandering years — meeting in one borrowed room after another — capture something true about how such institutions begin. They start not with a building but with a handful of committed people and whatever hall will have them.
People & events
It began, fittingly, at a bandstand. Following an initial gathering in July 1940 at the old bandstand on the courthouse square, Bay City VFW Post No. 2438 formally organized that November. Presiding as its first commander was Col. Wyatt O. Selkirk, a veteran of the First World War, born in 1881, who lent the new post the steadying authority of a man who had already been to war and come back. Eighteen charter members signed on under him.
For years the post had no home of its own, meeting in the courthouse, the I.O.O.F. hall, the Boney Building, the U.S.O. building — wherever there was room. Then, in 1948, Herbert and Allie Parker offered land at Bucks Bayou and Hamman Roads, and the post finally had a place to plant itself. With the land came a new name, and with the name, a story of sacrifice.
The Parkers' son, Army Air Forces Capt. Philip Hackley Parker, born in 1920, had flown a P-51D Mustang in the skies over China. On March 23, 1945, in the war's final months, he was killed in action by Japanese ground fire over Hsiang Ch'eng. To carry his name was to keep a hometown son present at every meeting. In the decades that followed, the post weathered its own trials — a 2000 fire destroyed its building and everything in it, and members rebuilt and dedicated a new home the next year.
Its place in the American story
Nearly every American town has a war memorial, but the deepest memorials are often the living organizations that carry a fallen soldier's name forward. Capt. Parker was one of countless young Americans who flew and fought over distant theaters most of their neighbors would never see; the China-Burma-India theater, where he died, is among the least remembered fronts of the war, which makes a marker keeping his name alive all the more meaningful.
The post also shows what the VFW was built to do, translated into the life of one community. Its members have aided needy veterans, supported active-duty service members, funded scholarships and student essay contests, and backed local institutions and charities — the unglamorous, year-in-year-out work of turning gratitude into action.
Perhaps most striking is the effort to identify the graves of more than 3,000 veterans across Matagorda County. That is a quiet act of national memory performed at the local level: making sure that those who served are not forgotten where they rest.
If you visit
A veterans' post is a different kind of historic site — not a preserved building but an ongoing institution, and the way to appreciate it is to understand the long road that led here. Standing at the current post, it's worth picturing the earlier stops: the courthouse square bandstand where it all began, the borrowed halls, the surplus military structure hauled in from Camp Hulen to serve as an early meeting hall and canteen.
Read the name on the post and let it register that this is a real young man — a Mustang pilot lost far from the Gulf Coast in 1945 — and not an abstraction. The building you see is itself a story of resilience, rebuilt after fire took the previous one and all its contents in 2000.
Bay City makes an easy stop on a Gulf Coast route through Matagorda County, and a post like this one is a reminder that the region's history isn't only in its landscapes and its seat of government but in the people who came home from war and spent the rest of their lives looking after one another. If you have veterans in your own family, it's a fitting place to pause and think of them.
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
- · Philip Hackley Parker
- · Wyatt O. Selkirk
Themes & tags
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