U. S. Army Camp at Texas City
Texas City, Galveston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
An increasing number of disturbances along Texas' Rio Grande border after Civil War broke out in Mexico in 1910 prompted U. S. President William Taft to consider increasing the U. S. Military presence in the area. Hugh B. Moore, Texas City terminal railway executive, and Augustus B. Wolvin, developer of Texas City's port and owner of a steamship line, persuaded U. S. Officials to establish an army camp in Texas City as a strategic point for possible troop movements into Mexico. In March 1913 approximately 14,000 army personnel, comprising three infantry brigades, one regiment each of cavalry and field artillery, one battalion of engineers, one signal corps company, one field bakery, one field hospital, and an aviation squadron, set up camp here in an open field just north of town. The army camp's air squadron was the first of its kind in the nation. Pilots of the eight aircraft located here set flight records for distance and speed, and entertained spectators with flying exhibitions. A local economic boom brought on by the camp ended abruptly when a major hurricane destroyed the camp and damaged some buildings in Texas City in 1915. The camp was not restored and many of its personnel were later stationed along the Texas-Mexico border.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
As revolution and border unrest spread from Mexico after 1910, local boosters persuaded federal officials to plant a major army camp at Texas City as a staging point for possible operations across the Rio Grande. In March 1913 some 14,000 troops—infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineers, and the nation's first military aviation squadron—pitched camp in an open field north of town. The camp's pilots set distance and speed records and thrilled crowds with flying exhibitions until a 1915 hurricane destroyed the encampment and scattered its soldiers to the border.
Why it matters
It marks both the U.S. military's tense watch over the Mexican Revolution and the pioneering days of American military aviation.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William Howard Taft
- · Hugh B. Moore
- · Augustus B. Wolvin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Aero Squadron
Texas City, TX
The First Aero Squadron, the U.S. Army's first tactical air unit, was stationed here from 1913 to 1915 amid border tensions stirred by the Mexican Revolution. Though its seven planes, five officers, and twenty-one enlisted men never saw combat, they made aerial maps and set a long-distance flight record. It was pioneering work in the earliest days of military aviation.
Wedell's Corner
Texas City, TX
This corner was the childhood home of brothers Jimmy and Walter Wedell, self-made aviation pioneers of the 1920s and '30s. Jimmy designed, built, and raced airplanes, partnered with financier Harry Williams to run an early airline, and held the world land-plane speed record at the time of his death in a 1934 crash. Walter died in a later air disaster—both brothers gone within a year, casualties of the daring age of speed flight.
First Texas City Refinery, The
Texas City, TX
Texas City's first oil refinery opened in 1908, built by the Texas City Refining Company with contractor J. C. Black and more than a hundred craftsmen who assembled its eleven stills, tanks, and boiler house. Crude arrived by rail and finished products left by pipeline for tankers at the Texas City docks, and the plant's output fed the nation's defense through both world wars — wartime demand nearly tripled the city's population. Repeatedly rebuilt and modernized, the refinery grew from 1,500 barrels a day in 1908 to 130,000 by the 1990s.
Galveston "News," C. S.A.
Galveston, TX
Founded in 1842 by Samuel Bangs, Texas's first printer, the Galveston News grew under Willard Richardson into a major paper housed in the city's first four-story building. The Civil War forced it to flee to Houston, print on straw paper and yellow tissue, and shrink its columns, but it endured; under Confederate veteran A. H. Belo it later founded the Dallas Morning News in 1885, pioneering twin editions issued 300 miles apart.