W. G. McMillan Construction Company
Lubbock, Lubbock County, Texas
Marker Inscription
W.G. McMillan came to Lubbock in 1924 to assist in the construction of the Hotel Lubbock. McMillan stayed, and over the next thirty years oversaw over 850 construction projects. Some of McMillan’s first projects included the 1926 Conoco service station, followed by completion of the Meadowbrook Golf Course. In 1930, McMillan completed the Lubbock Municipal Airport that still exists today. During World War II, McMillan played a significant role in the local war effort and the wartime history of Texas. In 1942, McMillan built 220 structures at South Plains Army Air Field, where glider pilots prepared for D-day and other invasions. Under McMillan and his son, numerous additional buildings were constructed on military bases and air fields in the area. The McMillan Construction Company (later known as McMillan and Son Construction Company) completed a multitude of projects, including airports, schools, public buildings, hospitals, grocery stores, churches, sporting venues, and numerous buildings on the Texas Tech campus. In addition to construction projects, W.G. McMillan also served the community through social, educational, and political organizations. McMillan was a member of the Kiwanis Club and Methodist Church, helped form the Plains Museum Society (later called the West Texas Museum Association) and constructed the original museum building in 1936. He participated in archeological digs, hunting expeditions, and community service projects. The W.G. McMillan construction company performed a significant and contributing role in the economic, physical, and commercial development of Lubbock. 175 Years of Texas Independence * 1836-2011
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
W.G. McMillan arrived in Lubbock in 1924 to help build the Hotel Lubbock and stayed to oversee more than 850 projects over three decades, from a 1926 service station to the municipal airport still in use. During World War II he built 220 structures at South Plains Army Air Field, where glider pilots trained for D-Day and other invasions, tying his firm directly to the war effort. Beyond construction, he helped found the region's museum society and served in civic life across the South Plains.
Why it matters
His buildings — schools, hospitals, campuses, and wartime airfields — physically shaped a West Texas city and show how local builders powered both community growth and the national mobilization for World War II.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · W.G. McMillan
Related events
- · South Plains Army Air Field
- · D-Day
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Neblett Hospital and Clinic
Canyon, TX
The Panhandle town of Canyon spent years trying and failing to fund a public hospital before Dr. Robert A. Neblett stepped in. A Tennessee-born, University of Texas–trained specialist in children's medicine, he announced in 1937 that he would build one himself, and that year a sixteen-room, air-conditioned hospital rose on 16th Street. It closed while he served nearly two and a half years in the Pacific during World War II, reopened on his return, and cared for Canyon residents and West Texas State students until 1975.
South Plains Army Air Field
Lubbock, TX
During World War II, the Army leased and expanded Lubbock's municipal airport into the South Plains Army Air Field, a leading center for training combat glider pilots. Here men learned to fly the engineless Waco CG-4A, the workhorse glider that carried troops silently behind enemy lines. Remarkably, the field trained nearly 80% of America's combat glider pilots, who went on to fly in the D-Day landings, Operation Market Garden, and the crossing of the Rhine. Its story is now told at the Silent Wings Museum on this site.
Texas Tech University Dairy Barn
Lubbock, TX
Completed in 1927 to house the cows of Texas Tech's Animal Husbandry Department, this dairy barn was deliberately designed as an Arts and Crafts bungalow to appeal to the farmers the young college served, setting it apart from the campus's Spanish Renaissance Revival architecture. Architect Wyatt Hedrick laid out a working dairy complete with milk house, milking rooms, calf stalls, and a cast-concrete silo. By 1930 the operation supplied milk, butter, and ice cream to the cafeteria, and students could offset their tuition by selling the products of cows they kept there.
Dagley Field
Lubbock, TX
On the eve of World War II, the United States realized it would need pilots by the thousands and launched the Civilian Pilot Training Program to turn college students into aviators. At Texas Technological College in Lubbock, roughly 6,500 cadets moved through the program, and half of them took to the air from this dirt-runway field run by local flyer 'Dag' Dagley. When the war's demand for pilots faded, the field closed and its quarter-section became the College Heights neighborhood.